TNT Post UK is challenging the country’s postal operator Royal Mail with a second trial ofend-to-end deliveries from mid-April in West London and has also signed a large mail delivery
contract with the global retailer Tesco to ship 180 million items annually.Following the successful conclusion of its first trial in Liverpool, TNT Post UK confirmed itslong-held ambition to launch its own delivery service within the UK but will not take thisstrategic step before the Royal Mail VAT exemption on the final mile is removed.
The latest trial will enable the company to further test and analyse its operations with the aimto roll out its broader end-to-end service when barriers to competition are removed.
“TNT Post has built an excellent reputation for quality, innovation and providing choice for itsclients. We now want to take those qualities and apply them to our own delivery service. We want tomake a significant investment in infrastructure and create thousands of jobs in the UK but thegovernment is doing little to help us to do this. We need the government to announce that it isgoing to allow fair competition in the UK postal market by removing the Royal Mail VAT exemption onfinal mile delivery,” TNT Post UK CEO Nick Wells said.
Under the delivery deal with Tesco which came into effect in February, TNT Post handles 180million mailings per year for various Tesco initiatives including all customer communications fromTesco Clubcard and Tesco Bank. Its Clubcard scheme alone sends several mailings per year to morethan 15 million households.
TNT Post was awarded the contract, which is reputed to be one of the most sought-after in theUK’s postal sector, following a competitive selective process. “Winning Tesco as a client is agreat coup for TNT Post and we are proud that our robust operational capability, combined withexcellent customer service, and of course value for money, shone through in the tender process,”Wells added.
TNT Post UK has grown significantly in the past eight years and now handles over 3.5 billionitems of mail a year equalling more than 300 million items per month in the UK. It delivers mailfor household names such as Barclays, BT, Centrica, Lloyds TSB, npower, Sky and most recently EON.It also has gained clients in the public sector and won many small business contracts through itsregional network.
