Parcelforce Worldwide is a
courierA courier is a person or company employed to deliver messages, packages and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of services, and committed delivery times, which are optional for...
and
logisticsLogistics is the management of the flow of goods, information and other resources, including energy and people, between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of consumers...
service in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of
Royal Mail Group LtdRoyal Mail is the national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail , Parcelforce Worldwide and General Logistics Systems...
.
Its international partner network allows it to extend its delivery reach worldwide. Its European delivery partner, also part of
Royal Mail Group LtdRoyal Mail is the national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail , Parcelforce Worldwide and General Logistics Systems...
, is called
GLS, (
General Logistics Systems) and delivers more than one million parcels a day across 34 countries in Europe.
Parcelforce Worldwide is a direct competitor of other worldwide delivery brands such as
DHLDHL Express is a division of Deutsche Post DHL providing international express mail services. Originally founded in 1969 to deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu, the company expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s...
,
FedExFedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1978 until 2000.-History:FedEx Corporation was...
and
UPSUnited Parcel Service, Inc. , commonly referred to as UPS, is the world's largest package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 200 countries and territories around the world...
.
Parcelforce Worldwide operates a "
hub and spokeThe hub-and-spoke distribution paradigm is a system of connections arranged like a chariot wheel, in which all traffic moves along spokes connected to the hub at the center...
" collection and delivery system with 2 hubs based in
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, adjacent to the airport.
Parcelforce Worldwide is a
courierA courier is a person or company employed to deliver messages, packages and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of services, and committed delivery times, which are optional for...
and
logisticsLogistics is the management of the flow of goods, information and other resources, including energy and people, between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of consumers...
service in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of
Royal Mail Group LtdRoyal Mail is the national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail , Parcelforce Worldwide and General Logistics Systems...
.
Its international partner network allows it to extend its delivery reach worldwide. Its European delivery partner, also part of
Royal Mail Group LtdRoyal Mail is the national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail , Parcelforce Worldwide and General Logistics Systems...
, is called
GLS, (
General Logistics Systems) and delivers more than one million parcels a day across 34 countries in Europe.
Parcelforce Worldwide is a direct competitor of other worldwide delivery brands such as
DHLDHL Express is a division of Deutsche Post DHL providing international express mail services. Originally founded in 1969 to deliver documents between San Francisco and Honolulu, the company expanded its service throughout the world by the late 1970s...
,
FedExFedEx Corporation , originally known as FDX Corporation, is a logistics services company, based in the United States. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1978 until 2000.-History:FedEx Corporation was...
and
UPSUnited Parcel Service, Inc. , commonly referred to as UPS, is the world's largest package delivery company. Headquartered in Sandy Springs, Georgia, United States, UPS delivers more than 15 million packages a day to 6.1 million customers in more than 200 countries and territories around the world...
.
Parcelforce Worldwide operates a "
hub and spokeThe hub-and-spoke distribution paradigm is a system of connections arranged like a chariot wheel, in which all traffic moves along spokes connected to the hub at the center...
" collection and delivery system with 2 hubs based in
CoventryCoventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham with a population of 300,848...
, adjacent to the airport. One hub is for UK parcels and the other for international parcels. The UK hub is a highly automated tracking and sorting centre covering which can handle up to 40,000 parcels an hour.
Parcelforce Worldwide was the first express carrier in the UK to give its customers the option of sending their parcels carbon-free.
Depot Network
Parcelforce Worldwide operates its collection and delivery services via a network of 53 local depots. These have been strategically located around the UK from Inverness in the north west of Scotland to Exeter in the south west of England. There are two depots in Wales, one central depot in Northern Ireland (serving Belfast) and two smaller satellite depots.
The largest posters also have the option of a direct feed collection. In other words, rather than a local depot collecting parcels for sorting, a trailer is left on site, filled up during the course of the working day and then taken directly to Coventry for processing.
Customer Service
The company has come under extensive criticism from disgruntled customers, dubbing it "Parcelfarce" in colloquial terms for its reliance on automated call handling and perceived failure to meet acceptable service levels for the safe delivery of parcels and all their contents.. In February 2006 Royal Mail was fined £11.4m after more than 14 million letters and parcels were lost, stolen, damaged or tampered with in the previous year.
In recent years the company has won industry awards for Information Technology and Health and Safety.
Handling fee for incoming international parcels
Under Article 18 of
Universal Postal UnionThe Universal Postal Union is an international organization that coordinates postal policies among member nations, and hence the worldwide postal system. Each member country agrees to the same set of terms for conducting international postal duties...
rules, all postal administrations who are members of the UPU are allowed to charge presentation-to-customs charges at a 'recommended' rate and customs clearance fees based on the company's actual costs if items are subject to customs duty or other fees. Parcelforce charges £13.50 if the item is imported through the GLS or
EMSIn most postal systems express mail refers to an accelerated delivery service for which the customer pays a surcharge and receives faster delivery. Express mail is a service for domestic mail and is governed by a country's own postal administration...
networks or if the item is valued at over €1000. Other items are subject to an £8 charge.
In 2003 Postwatch said it would investigate, stating "This smacks of profiteering. Customers should be confident when placing orders that the price is the price, with no hidden charges - which in this case appear to be exorbitant. We will be taking this up with Parcelforce immediately." As of 2009 this fee is still in place. The fee is regarded by some customers as a potentially illegal scam. Commenting on the legality of holding goods until clearance fees are paid, Postwatch stated in 2008 "There is no dispute regarding the operator's ability to retain a parcel until the customs fee is paid, however, there appears to be a case for saying that a postal operator may be acting illegally if it retains an item in order to claim its clearance fee". The Royal Mail have not defended Small Claims for the refund of fee and instead settled out of court.
Information Technology
Parcelforce Worldwide currently uses a combination of Information Technology systems that have either been inherited from Royal Mail Parcels, are shared with Royal Mail Letters and Post Office Counters or have been designed from scratch in recent years. In 2007, Parcelforce implemented a single new computer system to replace their older collection of computer systems. This upgraded system allows online package tracking through a web interface, showing what is currently happening to a particular package. It also allows regular posters to more easily order large quantities of packages to be sent, and to integrate their systems with that of Parcelforce.
History
The Parcel Post service of Royal Mail was started in 1883 , though parcel services operated by the railway companies, later
Red Star ParcelsRed Star Parcels was a service which utilised passenger trains for transporting parcels between passenger railway stations throughout the United Kingdom, owned and operated by British Rail....
and
British Road ServicesThe National Freight Corporation was a major British transport business. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and at one time, as NFC plc, it was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.-History:...
, were also heavily used for many decades.
Royal Mail's business was separated into three divisions in 1986 , and in 1990
Royal Mail Parcels was rebranded as
Parcelforce.
At the time of its inception the Post Office reform (regarding future privatisation) was being debated in
ParliamentThe Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom and British overseas territories. It alone has parliamentary sovereignty, conferring upon it ultimate power over all other political bodies in the UK and its territories...
leading to
Michael HeseltineMichael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, CH, PC is a British businessman, Conservative politician and patron of the Tory Reform Group....
amongst others debating all aspects of the dissolution of the national postal service including the proposed livery of the Parcelforce operation and the loss of the
RoyalThe Monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties...
crestA coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways. Historically, they were used by knights to identify them apart from enemy...
.
In 2002 the universal parcels service was transferred to
Royal MailRoyal Mail is the national postal service of the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail , Parcelforce Worldwide and General Logistics Systems...
leaving Parcelforce to concentrate on time-guaranteed, next day and two day express deliveries.
Branding
The Parcelforce Worldwide logo depicts a stylised globe with the brand name speeding across the top. There was some debate in the late 1990s around the use of colours. Customer research was carried out as to whether vehicles should be painted white (seen as clean) or red. Red came out on top as people associated the colour red as important and urgent. The colour red is also strongly associated with the Royal Mail and Post Offices and lends more trust to the brand.
In 2002, a blue band was added to the corporate marque and as new vehicles are commissioned, red, white and blue liveries are being introduced.
In 2005, all staff were instructed to use the full brand name “Parcelforce Worldwide”, rather than the abbreviated “Parcelforce”, to emphasise the company’s global reach via Royal Mail Group's GLS subsidiary.