Every sector stands to be affected, from financial services and charities to mail order catalogues. Even magazine subscriptions are included in Royal Mail plans to charge businesses according to where their mail is being delivered. This is zonal pricing. Meaning, it could cost a lot more to post things to rural customers - balanced, perhaps, by a small cut in urban charges.
The move will be more far-reaching, and have a greater impact, than last year's switch to charging by size. And there's this further important difference. Alex Walsh, the Direct Marketing Association's head of postal affairs, says that at least under the charging-by-size regulations, some in the industry stood to benefit. "Right now, I know **of no DMA member who is in favour of these proposals."
Officially, the scheme should come into effect in the spring of next year, after six months of industry-wide consultations and six months' preparation time. The talking won't begin, however, until Postcomm has more robust information from Royal Mail about how the zones will be defined, what the initial variations in charges will be, and how these differences might increase over time.
Make no mistake, however - if and when these proposals are implemented, the impact on the industry will be massive. Royal Mail has suggested that, at first, the charge for delivering in the most expensive areas to service would be seven per cent above average, but that this could rise to 34 per cent over three or four years.
And that might not be the end of it. A number of private distribution companies have licences under which they take the mail they've collected to Post Office depots for final sorting and delivery. They already have to pay up to 65 per cent more for mail going to the most costly rural destinations. If the proposals go through, all direct-marketing companies will have to review the geographical spread of their businesses. It seems clear that mail volumes going to country areas must decline. Less post going into a village means less coming out, which will be a further blow to rural post offices.
What lies behind the Royal Mail's thinking is the fear that new competitors will cream off the easy, more profitable urban deliveries, leaving it to service the countryside. So far, however, it has offered no evidence that it is being hurt in this way. Direct marketers must fight this breach of the principle of universal delivery. But here's a warning: expect Royal Mail to be tenacious. History suggests that once ideas like this have been formulated, they have a habit of resurfacing again and again.
Ken Gofton is a freelance journalist who has covered the marketing industry for over two decades.