| Type | Limited |
|---|---|
| Industry | Postal Service |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Headquarters | Milton Keynes, United Kingdom |
| Parent | Royal Mail Group Ltd |
| Website | www.parcelforce.com |
Parcelforce Worldwide is a courier and logistics service in the United Kingdom. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of Royal Mail Group Ltd.[1]
Its international partner network allows it to extend its delivery reach worldwide. Its European delivery partner, also part of Royal Mail Group Ltd, is called GLS (General Logistics Systems) and delivers more than one million parcels a day across 34 countries in Europe.[2]
Parcelforce Worldwide is a direct competitor of other worldwide delivery brands such as DHL, FedEx and UPS.
Parcelforce Worldwide operates a "hub and spoke" collection and delivery system with two hubs based at Coventry, adjacent to the airport. One hub is for UK parcels and the other for international parcels. The UK hub, one of the country's largest buildings, is a highly automated tracking and sortation centre covering 43 acres (170,000 m2) which can handle up to 40,000 parcels an hour.[3]
Parcelforce Worldwide was the first express carrier in the UK to give its customers the option of sending their parcels with carbon-offsetting.[4]
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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 of Scotland to Plymouth in the southwest 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.
The company has come under extensive criticism[5] from disgruntled customers, for its reliance on automated call handling[6] and perceived failure to meet acceptable service levels for the safe delivery of parcels and all their contents.[7][8] In recent years the company has won industry awards for information technology[9] and health and safety.[10]
Under Section J, Article 18.3 of the Universal Postal Union - Letter Post Manual, all postal administrations who are designated operators which are authorized to clear items through customs on behalf of customers may charge customers a customs clearance fee based on the actual costs. This fee may be charged for all items declared at customs according to national legislation, including those exempt from customs duty. Parcelforce Worldwide are part of the Royal Mail Group plc, therefore a UPU designated postal administration.[11] If the item is imported through the GLS or EMS networks or if the item is valued at over €1,000 the clearance fee is £13.50. Other items are subject to an £8 charge.[12]
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.
The Parcel Post service of Royal Mail was started in 1883,[13] though parcel services operated by the railway companies, later Red Star Parcels and British Road Services, were also heavily used for many decades.
Royal Mail's business was separated into three divisions in 1986,[13] 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 Parliament[14] leading to Michael Heseltine 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 Royal crest.
In 2002 the universal parcels service was transferred to Royal Mail leaving Parcelforce to concentrate on time-guaranteed, next day and two day express deliveries.[15]
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.
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