A Wirral postman has formed a courier business that he believes could 'revolutionise the postal industry' and save local businesses thousands of pounds.
Paul East's new concept, Local Postal Solutions, offers businesses a same-day postal delivery that he says is far cheaper and better for the environment than the traditional postal service.
Paul, a postman with more than 16 years' experience in the industry, explained: "Not everyone is aware of the lengthy process that happens when their post is collected by Royal Mail.
"Once the postman collects it from your business, it gets sorted in a sorting office in Prenton before going to Chester in a large lorry to be sorted there too.
"It then comes back to Wirral to be delivered to the intended recipient."
He continued: "This lengthy process means there is more chance of mail getting lost and as of May 23 the on-time delivery rate was just 73.7% against the target of 93%. Also, only 89.4% of duties got completed.
"There have been price increases of 66% and 10,000 job losses within Royal Mail, so it has all compelled me to think about the whole process.
"It's just not logical, not to mention the unnecessary carbon emissions."
Whereas you may expect private postal couriers to be more expensive, Paul says his Local Postal Solutions is much cheaper and more efficient than Royal Mail’s service.
Paul collects from the business, sorts the mail immediately and then delivers to the various recipients straight away. He even offers a money-back guarantee if he is unable to fulfill this target.
As an example, with Local Postal Solutions an A4 letter of up to 750g costs £1.20 as opposed to £2.95 – £3.30 with Royal Mail.
Therefore, if a local solicitors sent an average of 20 of these to local clients per day, they’d save around £40 per day. Over the year, this would equate to approximately £14,000 savings per annum.
Paul said: "People expect private couriers to be an expensive luxury service but not in this case.
"Local Postal Solutions is cheaper, more efficient and a personal service. When I’ve explained it to people, they can't believe it hasn’t been done before.
"The clients who have been using me so far are made up — especially when they start to see the savings."
Paul is planning to help as many Wirral businesses as possible, before expanding his fleet, going fully electric - he currently uses his bike for as many deliveries as possible - and employing more people in order to offer the service in other areas.
Paul summarised: "People get used to things being a certain way and often just assume that’s the way they’re meant to be, but I’m a firm believer in questioning things and trying to do things differently.
"I'm hoping that this new postal concept will revolutionise the industry — saving businesses lots of money and saving the planet in the process."
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