Cardsharp

cardsharp No Stamp

Of Approval

Royal Mail is integral to the UK greeting card industry, reflects Cardsharp. Without being able to send a greeting card to the recipient easily, affordably and punctually to arrive on that special day, the industry’s very reason for its existence is significantly negated.

At a time when the GCA is fighting the industry’s corner to safeguard the six day a week postal delivery service, Cardsharp examines the historic intertwined relationship with Royal Mail.

Although the Royal Mail courier service predates greeting cards and goes back to the reign of Henry VIII in 1516, it is fair to say that the Royal Mail and the greeting card industry have historically enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with benefits enjoyed by both parties, as they should in any good relationship.

Indeed, Sir Henry Cole - the pioneer of the first commercial Christmas card (and namesake of The Henries greeting card awards), assisted Sir Roland Hill, in the introduction of the Penny Post in 1840 and the famous Penny Black stamp - realised that without a cheap and efficient postal system, greeting card sending would never take off. And ever since then, the two sides have been almost joined at the hip. This success meant that a similar model took off all around the world and as we were the first in on the act, Britain is the only country that does not bear the name of the country on its stamps.

As well as being heavily involved in the greeting card industry for over 30 years, Cardsharp has his own very personal relationship with Royal Mail. As a child he was a keen philatelist aka a stamp collector and has rediscovered this nerdish hobby with a passion in the last five years. In fact, Cardsharp could bore (over a beer or two) all about the history of British Empire stamps of the George VI era.

Historically the Royal Mail and the Post Office have been very supportive of the greeting card industry, understanding the mutual dependency. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s it invested in advertising campaigns to promote greeting card sending, most notably to promote Spring Seasons. This was for selfinterest, recognising it made the thud of bills and promotional mail that landed on the doormat much more interesting and acceptable to members of the public. After all, what is more thrilling to receive a good wish from someone that cares among all the statements telling you how much you owe them?! In those days, as in Sir Henry Cole’s and indeed Henry Eighth’s time, Royal Mail was nationalised as part of the Post Office. Although industrial relations were often troublesome (there was a strike causing a two-month suspension of service in 1971 and another national strike by Post Office workers in 1988), there was generally a good service as well as a sense of duty and pride among employees.

It was not called Royal Mail for nothing. First Class post generally meant next day delivery. The cost of a stamp, especially compared with the cost of a greeting card, was generally cheap. This all helped the greeting card industry grow rapidly in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. In the early 1990s, the Conservative government, under PM John Major, moved towards privatisation, only to back down due to opposition from its own MPs.

Various changes did take place though. In 2001, an ill-considered name change from Royal Mail to Consignia was soon

Above: Royal Mail and the greeting card industry have enjoyed a symbiotic relationship for years…but the romance needs rekindling. Below: What we need is Postman Pat and his black and white cat to work some magic. Below left: Sir Henry Cole was the assistant to Rowland Hill on the Penny Post’s inbtroduction.

abandoned, having proved highly unpopular with both employees and the public. And then to add insult to injury in 2004, the much loved ‘Second Post’ that arrived late morning was abolished. A couple of years later Royal Mail lost its 350year historical monopoly on postal delivery. Then in 2011 Royal Mail finally succumbed to the trend for economic liberalism with the Postal Service Act, which led to the private stock market flotation in 2013.

Coinciding with these events, new letter sorting machinery purchased from Germany to increase efficiency, led the Royal Mail management to embark on a move to implement size-based pricing. All well and good reflected Cardsharp, until it was realised this new machinery did not recognise letters with equal dimensions both horizontally and vertically, meaning they were still sorted by hand, which added to the cost. This signalled that posting square greeting cards could be subject to a postal surcharge in the UK as they were in the several other countries around the world, Germany for starters. It was largely due to tenacious lobbying by the Greeting Card Association that stopped this happening as well as sparing small cards from being ousted by Royal Mail under the much discussed adoption of Pricing in Proportion (PIP) postal tariff. The main argument, which was potently delivered by Paul Woodmansterne (GCA president at the time) was that penalising square cards and small formats would stifle the innovation in the UK’s world leading greeting card industry, surely something Royal Mail would not want on its report card. As part of the trade off, and in an effort to minimise consumer confusion inherent with such a change to the UK’s postal charge structure, the GCA set to in coming up with standard logos (that Hallmark devised) that all UK greeting card publishers and others could use on their products to easily communicate whether the card could be posted using a standard stamp or necessitate using a higher priced ‘Large Letter’ one if going through the postal system. Cardsharp clearly remembers all the hoo-ha PiP’s imposition caused at the time, coming into effect in August 2006, though it has been pretty much accepted by the greeting card industry and the UK consumer over time.

Not so the huge drop in service though, reflects Cardsharp, observing that the term ‘First Class’ now means very little. Some days there seem to be no deliveries, and the next day a bewildering large pile.

As a magazine publisher this is a common occurrence at ‘PG Towers’ by all accounts. An irritated reader will rightly complain that they have not received their monthly copy of PG, only for a check to reveal it was dispatched eight days previously. Covid could be used as an excuse a year ago, but not now, and Cardsharp sees little sign of improvement.

And at the start of April, rather sneakily, Royal Mail imposed a 10p increase in the cost of a First Class stamp, taking it to 95p. That’s nearly a quid, more than the cost of many a card bought in the likes of Card Factory, and almost the same price as McDonald’s cheapest burger!

Royal Mail justifies this recent increase on a long-term decline in letter usage. Its CEO Nick Landon states, “We need to carefully balance our pricing against decreasing letter volumes”. But Cardsharp recalls that in 2004 when volumes were at their peak, a first-class stamp was just 28p! It is obvious that texts and emails are cheap and immediate and would have led to a decline in postal usage what ever happened, but Royal Mail’s recent policy has certainly exacerbated this trend. All this would become evident when stamp prices were no longer governed by the postal regulator and subsequently the price of a stamp has tripled and the service has deteriorated.

Cardsharp thinks this has already had a terrible negative on our industry. And if it continues this trend, taken to the extreme greeting card posting could become the preserve of the middle class and the older generation. To Cardsharp’s mind, the now privatised Royal Mail is seemingly not as committed to letter post, let alone the greeting card industry as it should be. While quite rightly the GCA is packing the punches in the support of our industry, the easy reading between the lines is that Royal Mail’s head has somewhat been turned to the more profitable parcel delivery market.

While it looks like the GCA has quashed the ‘swear words’ of a move to a three day week postal delivery, there could still be trouble ahead. There are loud rumours rumbling that the Saturday delivery could be sacrificed, or only saved by a premium price being imposed for a guaranteed weekend delivery. But what is the now current 95p stamp price if not a premium price?

Cardsharp by nature is not a great fan of state-owned industries, but it is hard not to come to the conclusion that Royal Mail privatisation has been a disaster for the consumer and the UK greeting card industry.

Back in 1913, the British prime minister, Herbert ‘Squiffy’ Asquith, would send a letter to his mistress by post in the morning suggesting an evening assignation. He would then receive a return letter from her by the late afternoon. Lucky old Squiffy! These days he would be lucky to get a reply four days later. By that time, I am sure his ardour would have cooled! That’s progress for you!

In the meantime, Cardsharp will console himself by perusing his beloved stamp collection, reminding himself of the time when the UK postal service was the envy of the world.

Left: The Penny Black was the way forward for regular affordable post. Below right: Thankfully handsorting means that square cards and small cards were not penalised when PiP was introduced in 2006. Below left: The industry needs to know it can rely on a First Class servive from Royal Mail.