Up and coming changes to Royal Mail Second Class Service

[stampsnallsorts]

What we know about Royal Mail's major changes to second class post 

Source Yahoo News 10th July 2025

Royal Mail will be allowed to ditch Saturday deliveries for second class post and switch to an alternate weekday service, regulator Ofcom has confirmed.

In January, the regulator said that after a consultation, it had provisionally concluded that reducing the second class letter service to alternate weekdays, while keeping first class deliveries six days a week, would continue to meet postal users’ needs.

Now, Ofcom has confirmed that these plans will go ahead, saving Royal Mail between £250 million and £425 million a year.

The target for second class letters to arrive within three working days will be kept despite the changes, which come after a lengthy consultation and aims to “help the universal service to survive”.

What does Royal Mail have to do now?

Royal Mail is required to meet the universal service obligation (USO), which means it must deliver letters six days a week (Monday to Saturday) and parcels five days a week (Monday to Friday) to every address in the UK.

The company must deliver 93% of first-class mail the next day and 98.5% of second-class mail within three days.

What are they changing to?

From 28 July, Royal Mail will scrap Saturday deliveries for second-class letters and deliver them on alternate weekdays – for example, Monday, Wednesday, Friday one week, then Tuesday, Thursday the next.

First-class letter deliveries will remain six days a week, and parcel deliveries are unaffected.

The aim is to deliver second-class mail within three working days. Delivery targets will be adjusted, with first-class mail next-day delivery reduced from 93% to 90% and second-class mail within three days from 98.5% to 95%.

A new target ensures 99% of mail is delivered no more than two days late.

[susapric-68]

And what that really means for sellers with eBays terrible estimates for deliveries is late delivery defects will go up and eBay will add an extra few % fees for high late deliveries rate. At the moment eBays system can't handle 3 days for 2nd class because they count the day it's sent as a day it can be delivered.

Would recommend sellers extend their dispatch times but send as normal to allow for it

[kyanyama]

During covid lockdown I set my dispatch window to 5 days to take into account getting ill & not wanting to go out and infect folks.  Left it at that cos you know, human 'beans' get ill, have car problems, family emergencies.  I maintained my 5* cos I still posted next day or within a couple of days.  Most often my items arrived before my dispatch window closed.

But now with Not-So-Simple-Delivery the dispatch window is max. 3 working days.  Nothing has changed - folks still get sick, have car problems, family emergencies but there is now no way to protect ourselves from eBay's draconian 'laws'.  These rules are devised by people around a conference who have probably never sold an item on eBay in their lives.  Just saying!

[fantailsforme]

Those around the conference table have probably never even posted anything in their lives.  All post would go to the secretaries who then give the mail to the post boy.

[stampsnallsorts]

For last few years I set my dispatch time to 10 days, only down side is I lost my 10% discount on seller fees but added to my terms and conditions of sale and when I send invoices the following notice. 2 Weeks ago I reduced my shipping time to 7 days when I start my first advert campaign. This is to protect me from late dispatch marks. It also allows if needs require to take a day or 2 off without need to post time away notices which can reduce sale. 

Payments due within 7 days of 1st of purchase.

If buying more items, you are welcome to hold off paying invoice until other items have ended within 7-day window.

P&P includes charges for P&P.

Any problems please contact me.

My post processing days are only Monday, & Thursday. Orders marked as dispatched are in processing. I aim to post all orders within 7 days at most depending on number of orders. Most within 1 or 2 days of processing.

[mod81]

When i purchased my books of 2nd class stamps from the post office, i was buying a stamp for a postal service that delivered 6 days a week and no where on the books of stamps does it say that subject to terms and conditions that could be changed down the line because RM want to make more profit.

So am i entitled to send them back for a refund now since they are no longer fit for the purpose i purchased them for?

[stampsnallsorts]

I doubt it. The new books no longer state that

[wyntersemporium]

I only post second class as cheaper for me . Think most of mine are on 10 days but don’t get many sales now. 

[mod81 · Accepted solution]

But thats the point they don't say anything at all on the books. I walked into the Post Office ask for a book of stamps and hand over money and I never agreed to any t&cs when i bought them, but it the service i paid for when buying the book was 6 days a week, and now its only 3 days a week and not Saturdays. So this is worse than what was advertised when I purchased them.

If i prepaid for a £10 gift voucher a year ago and now the shop said  'Oh we changed our mind and now that  voucher is only worth 2/3rds of what you paid for it' you would undoubtedly be annoyed that you're not getting the value out of the voucher than you paid for. And that is essentially what the Royal Mail and Ofcom have just done to anyone who prepaid for stamps before this change occurs.

[stampsnallsorts]

You have mis read what is being stated. second class service is actually being improved from 3 to 5 days delivery time to just 3 days. The service is being reduced from 6 days Monday to Saturday to Monday to Friday. Saturday deliveries will become a first class service only.  I personally do not see any issues from these changes. I ship 99% of my orders second class and majority are delivered now either next day or within 3 days

[wgwillia]

A bit like Ebay can't run a p--s up in a brewery.

[banditfrenzy]

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@mod81 wrote:

When i purchased my books of 2nd class stamps from the post office, i was buying a stamp for a postal service that delivered 6 days a week and no where on the books of stamps does it say that subject to terms and conditions that could be changed down the line because RM want to make more profit.

So am i entitled to send them back for a refund now since they are no longer fit for the purpose i purchased them for?

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I have a similar problem with my penny blacks, I purchased them in good faith yet RM refuse to deliver my mail by coach & horse. Please come back & let us know how you get on.

[gjalp]

Makes no difference to me and incoming mail. We only see the postman 2-3 times a week these days. One of the postmen on our round passed away and he was never replaced. Postman brings letters and large letters mostly and the bigger parcels come separately later in the day by a van driver. We rarely have post on a Monday or a Saturday.

[wyntersemporium]

Posties here every day either delivering or collecting 

[fotherbale]

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@stampsnallsorts wrote:

......second class service is actually being improved from 3 to 5 days delivery time to just 3 days.

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If only. 

In the last few months, my own experience has been that letters seem to take around 10 days to be delivered to me (irrespective of whether they are sent 1st or 2nd class).  It had been steadily getting worse during the last couple of years; prior to that most letters arrived within 3 days of being posted (and 1st never seemed to get to me any quicker than 2nd, which is one of the reasons that I never use 1st myself anymore).

[stampsnallsorts]

I have been using 2nd class for last few years due to cost difference. As a stamp dealer many people do not realise that if one uses REAL STAMPS as against the white horizon label, if you use more than 1 stamp the chances are that the posted item will be treated as 1st class. If the posted item is small enough to go through RM automatic sorting machinery all it looks for are the number of invisible phosphor lines on the stamps and not the value on the stamps. With parcels I tend to use as many older commemorative stamps as possible. Postmen that sort these do not have the time to count the value of the stamps use. ALSO I DO NOT mark my post as either 1st or 2nd class.

Contary to popular belief NOT ALL stamps with QEII head on have been invalidated. All commemorative stamps issued from 1971 to date are still valid for postage. DO NOT BE TEMPTED to buy lots of stamps sold as UNFRANKED because the Post Office failed to cancel them, although these lots sell at a fraction of the face value, it is illegal (criminal offence) to reuse a stamps for which the service provided has already been used. It is legal to sell unfranked stamps that have not been cancelled as I do. You can find on eBay many sellers offering commemorative at very low prices and I buy a lot of these lots to use as postage.

Try it and you might be surprised how it improves delivery times, you will need to prep all post before going to post office. I use a business service that the post office offer for businesses Bulk Posting using a manifest. It is much faster than waiting for the teller to enter every address. I can send a draft manifest form I use on request with instruction how to use this service.

[gjalp]

I don’t use the post office, I use the nearest mailbox and ‘make up’ values of stamps. Most of my outgoing mail has at least 2 stamps on but most have 4 that total 87p. The only problems I have had is with tracked mail 🙄 latest tracked 48 took 10 days to arrive.