Is Royal Mail justified in offering and promoting its direct mail services - Research Proposal Example

Under the Postal Services Act 2000, the UK government decided to introduce Postcomm as the regulator of a universal framework designed to protect the customers from unreasonable price increase of post stamps and poor quality postal services such as delayed, damaged or lost letters and parcels. (Postcomm, 2008; BBC News, 2004) As part of increasing the efficiency of post mail services throughout UK, the local government decided to open the post mailing business to other private operators. (BBC News, 2004) In line with the growing competition in the post mail industry, the researcher will answer the research question ‘Is Royal Mail justified in offering and promoting its direct mail services?

’ by examining both the positive and negative impact of ‘junk mail’ under the British Royal Mail services. In the process of justifying the pros and cons of ‘junk mail’ services, the researcher will discuss the size of volume increase in direct mail; the commercial and social effects of increasing the ‘junk mail’ volume as well as the ecological effects of ‘junk mail’ services. There are pros and cons with regards to the delivery of ‘junk mail’ also known as the unsolicited or unaddressed commercial mails to households.

To evaluate the benefits and consequences of junk mail, the researcher will discuss the following: According to the Local Government Association (LGA), roughly 78,000 tonnes of junk mail reaches the landfill sites each year. (Oliver, 2006) In 2005, as much as 4,002 million personal mails and 1,132 million commercial mails were distributed all over UK. (DMIS, 2006: 2) This figure reflects a 62% increase in Direct Mail in the last 10 years. (See Table I – Direct Mail Volume 1990 – 2005 on page ) The main social and commercial problem attached with the increasing volume of junk mail is the fact that not all households that constantly receive junk mail are reading the mails.

As a major social consequence of increasing