Royal Mail Price Rises

[deniser]

Loving the way the email about prices rises starts with

"From 31 March it's going to be a lot cheaper to post a 1-2kg Small Parcel using Royal Mail. That means you can still get the same great service, but for a whole lot less!"

Medium parcels (which we don't use, as courier is cheaper) is staying the same, and Small parcels 1-2 kg (which we don't use either because our items are bulky but light) are going down but everything else - stamps, large letters, small parcels under 1 kg, international services (all the services we do use) are going up in price.

We struggle with size rather than weight so all these further price rises do is to push the last few RM items that we send onto the couriers instead.

Does anyone actually manage to fit 1-2 kilos into the small parcel dimension to benefit from the one price drop?

 

[Paul Norman]

I do share your pain! As you are rapidly coming round to see, Royal Mail are completely irrelevant to the e-commerce market. We stopped using them some 3 years ago now, and reading posts like this just reminds us how unsuitable they would be in every way.

 

[kulture]

They are playing silly games with numbers to present a better picture than reality. By saying some prices are going up by say 6% and others are going down by say 2%, then the average increase is only 4% (or some such). (working out the "average" by the number of price points). WHat they hide is that the price points going down are the ones rarely used. Who after all sends lead bricks, which is about all you can get in th every small boxes which weigh over 1Kg

 

[kulture]

Royal Mail still remain the cheapest for parcels where your average is under 1Kg. £1.92 is still difficult to beat.

 

[deniser]

I do share your pain! As you are rapidly coming round to see, Royal Mail are completely irrelevant to the e-commerce market. We stopped using them some 3 years ago now, and reading posts like this just reminds us how unsuitable they would be in every way.

We do still use them for:
1. small parcels under 1 kg
2. parcels to Northern Ireland, Malta, Cyprus, Scottish Highlands, Channel Islands and Isle of Man
3. parcels outside the EU
as they still seem to be a little cheaper for these things - but not for much longer as their prices keep going up and the more we send via courier, the courier prices go down so more and more meeting in the middle.

 

[HorseLatitudes]

Royal Mail still remain the cheapest for parcels where your average is under 1Kg. £1.92 is still difficult to beat.

This

I sell clothing on ebay from time to time and it's the cheapest by far for anything like T-Shirts, jumoers, jeans etc...

 

[JamesSco]

We use Royal Mail for anything under 2kg which is the vast majority of our stuff. Fortunately the service we use does not have any silly size requirements such as the Small and Large packets.

At £1.81 for any packets under 2kg, we are not going to get anything cheaper elsewhere. My biggest concern is they introduce small and large packets for business tariffs. Would be unworkable!

As kulture states, they really manipulate the numbers. Think on average they said their price rises were 6% last year but for us it went up nearly 20%

 

[14Steve14]

Agree with most of the posts above. RM under 2Kg is great value for money, and cannot really be beaten. I also think the service is good too. The 1st and 2nd class letter increases are far smaller than they could have been. Most of my parcels fit in the small parcel category and never weigh over 2kg. Those that do get sent by courier.

 

[cazza]

Hi
can't post links yet but the new prices are on Royal Mails website now.
royalmail dot /prices-2014
hope this helps

 

[kulture]

Its http://www.royalmail.com/prices-2014

 

[IanG]

Does anyone actually manage to fit 1-2 kilos into the small parcel dimension to benefit from the one price drop?

Yes, this is about 20% of my inventory.

Probably not enough to offset the increases on the other services, although I've not done the maths on it.

Interestingly I listened to this news on a number of providers and not one mentioned that some prices are going down. Perhaps people prefer to hear bad news.

 

[IanG]

Its http://www.royalmail.com/prices-2014

2nd Class Small Parcels prices start from £2.80

That's an increase - that's £2.60 now.

Or do they start more expensive but the get proportionally cheaper as the weight increases?

 

[Enjoy Dokha]

We are having the same problem.

Because of the size of our parcels, RM rates them as a Small Parcel not a Large Letter - We send most of our orders Guaranteed Next Day or 1st class recorded. GND is just 6.75 and 1st class recorded is nearly 5 pounds now with the increases.

Looking for an alternative to help bring the costs down as these prices quickly add up to be alot.

Any ideas?

 

[TPH1]

I do share your pain! As you are rapidly coming round to see, Royal Mail are completely irrelevant to the e-commerce market. We stopped using them some 3 years ago now, and reading posts like this just reminds us how unsuitable they would be in every way.

I agree that Royal Mail are really flying close to the wind with their consistent and considerable price increases, and it's very frustrating. However, to say that they are "completely irrelevant to the e-commerce market" is pure nonsense. They are still easily the cheapest courier out there for small parcels, and small parcels make up the majority of e-commerce sales.

 

[sirearl]

Selling off royal mail to their mates at a knock down price was never going to be a good idea.

Just wait another year and see what the prices are.

Shareholders have to have their pound of flesh no matter what.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/01/royal-mail-privatisation-taxpayer-loser

 

[JPMiddleton]

I do share your pain! As you are rapidly coming round to see, Royal Mail are completely irrelevant to the e-commerce market. We stopped using them some 3 years ago now, and reading posts like this just reminds us how unsuitable they would be in every way.

Don't you mean they irrelevant and unsuitable to you and your business, not the ecommerce market? They are still the best value service by far for our needs - reliability, price and more.

 

[IanG]

Just wish going over 25mm didn't mean something otherwise small and light going from 69 pence to £2.60.

 

[cholland]

Out of interest how have you achieved the prices of £1.90 for a small parcel under 1kg?

 

[ecoleman]

Out of interest how have you achieved the prices of £1.90 for a small parcel under 1kg?

A business account sending parcels under 2Kg via 48 hour service is £1.92 + VAT

Just a suggestion for those looking to save some money on postage.
Last year we decided to trial sending out our goods on a standard 48 hour service. Not tracked, no signed for or anything like that.

Our average selling price of goods we ship is £32, and we expected a certain amount of "Loss" but figured our savings would compensate for the loss.

A year on and I can count on one hand the number of "Lost" parcels we have had.
The majority of our stuff is delivered within 2-3 days and I am very please to say that the vast majority of customers are honest and do not claim non receipt. (I would not try this with eBay customers however

As a result we save around £1500 / month

 

[Talay]

...
A year on and I can count on one hand the number of "Lost" parcels we have had.
The majority of our stuff is delivered within 2-3 days and I am very please to say that the vast majority of customers are honest and do not claim non receipt. (I would not try this with eBay customers however

As a result we save around £1500 / month

There is a whole underbelly of society who deliberately look to defraud from ebay yet when I "caught" one before they had the chance, ebay didn't give a toss.

 

[cholland]

That makes sense, we send first class so hence the price difference!

Out of interest how long are 2nd class packets taking to arrive?

 

[paulears]

Their sizes are really stupid - not based on volume. I sell microphones - they are all lightweight really, and one popular one was £4.10, 1st class signed for. If I put two in one parcel on top of each other, it went up to £10, but side by side, 2 is £4.10. Even 3 can still go for £4.10 - really crazy pricing. It's now 20p more expensive. All my other mics go via parcel 2 go now, unless customers want to pay for RM.

 

[ecoleman]

That makes sense, we send first class so hence the price difference!

Out of interest how long are 2nd class packets taking to arrive?

Ours are on average 2-3 days. It's a 48 hour service so should be 2 days, but as with any standard mail there will always be a few that take a bit longer.

 

[14Steve14]

Just out of curiosity does anyone know where the 2nd class parcels spend a day..

 

[roydmoorian]

Royal Mail's biggest issue for us at the moment is the time of delivery. Twice last week the mail came after 17:00 which means that the postman can no longer take away the day's mail with him because it would not get to the sorting office in time as it is franked and we would be accused of putting the wrong date on.

 

[deniser]

Second class parcels sit in the delivery office until there is a quiet day and they then get delivered.

 

[Enjoy Dokha]

We have now started to use UK Mail and their prices are very competitive. We normally send guaranteed next day delivery or 1st class recorded for a small parcel which costs just under £7 or £4.50 for 1st class signed for. With UK Mail we place our small parcels in their postal bags and for guaranteed next day it's £4.40. For the equivalent to royal mail 48 hour it's £2.68!

 

[deniser]

We have now started to use UK Mail and their prices are very competitive. We normally send guaranteed next day delivery or 1st class recorded for a small parcel which costs just under £7 or £4.50 for 1st class signed for. With UK Mail we place our small parcels in their postal bags and for guaranteed next day it's £4.40. For the equivalent to royal mail 48 hour it's £2.68!

£2.68 for which size exactly? That sounds almost too good to be true!

 

[Enjoy Dokha]

£2.68 for a small parcel. Somethings that's slightly bigger than the size of a DVD and maybe triple the width of a DVD. You have to send at least 5 to warrant this price and they will collect from you too.

 

[wibzo]

A business account sending parcels under 2Kg via 48 hour service is £1.92 + VAT

Just a suggestion for those looking to save some money on postage.
Last year we decided to trial sending out our goods on a standard 48 hour service. Not tracked, no signed for or anything like that.

Our average selling price of goods we ship is £32, and we expected a certain amount of "Loss" but figured our savings would compensate for the loss.

A year on and I can count on one hand the number of "Lost" parcels we have had.
The majority of our stuff is delivered within 2-3 days and I am very please to say that the vast majority of customers are honest and do not claim non receipt. (I would not try this with eBay customers however

As a result we save around £1500 / month

If you don't mind me asking, how many parcels a week/month do you actually send? and you say you've got a business account with royal mail? I have been searching everywhere for a decent courier. Have been using Royal Mail Drop & Go for years now but delivery is just taking too long and it's sooo much effort going to the post office every day.

 

[Babymoos]

We have now started to use UK Mail and their prices are very competitive. We normally send guaranteed next day delivery or 1st class recorded for a small parcel which costs just under £7 or £4.50 for 1st class signed for. With UK Mail we place our small parcels in their postal bags and for guaranteed next day it's £4.40. For the equivalent to royal mail 48 hour it's £2.68!

How long have you been using UK Mail? I've never seen a good review of them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[deniser]

Interesting survey sent out by Royal Mail today. Did anyone else get it?

There were a lot of questions where they wanted comparisons on performance and other aspects to specific courier companies and several questions about simplified pricing with removal of volume limits.

It looks as though they are aware that the volume limits for small parcels are an issue.... let's hope so.

 

[deniser]

£2.68 for a small parcel. Somethings that's slightly bigger than the size of a DVD and maybe triple the width of a DVD. You have to send at least 5 to warrant this price and they will collect from you too.

like the large letter size?
not as big as the small parcel 45x35x8?