So Royal Mail have increased their prices...

[moo-tique]

Hi to all,

So it appears that RM have increased their prices particularly for sending parcels. What shocks us most is the lack of communication from RM. After paying a visit to our local Post Office Depot today, the response we got was 'we were only informed about it today!' We are as much in the dark as you and many other customers!".

What's almost more shocking is the actual increase. What used to cost us £3.65 for sending a medium sized parcel via recorded delivery now costs £6.75!!

Are they trying to make our lives difficult as it means we've now got to react and increase our prices yet again!

 

[simon field]

I do sympathise, but try as I might I can't help thinking that for a man to collect a parcel, take it all the way to its destination, and prove that it got there safely - £6.75 sounds an absolute bargain to me.

I'd charge that for a 6 mile 15 minute drive.

 

[DanielSalesConsultant]

Hi to all,
What's almost more shocking is the actual increase. What used to cost us £3.65 for sending a medium sized parcel via recorded delivery now costs £6.75!!

Are they trying to make our lives difficult as it means we've now got to react and increase our prices yet again!

It's a knock on effect. It is a bloody p**s take. It takes a big company like Royal Mail to do something and has a ripple effect on smaller businesses. The Royal Mail reported a profit of £211 million so I wonder why the need to increase prices? For more profit? How much profit does a government owned agency need?

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Maybe they are trying to re-start their pension scheme?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...pension-assets-to-pay-down-national-debt.html

 

[smo]

Its hardly new that the prices were increasing - it happens EVERY year at exactly the same time, 3 or more months before it happens they give proposal details as they are regulated.

1 month before ALL account holders, post offices etc. are sent the new prices and they are made public on the RM website for all to see.

To claim that they didnt know (post offices) is utter tripe. They were sent the info, its been on the news, in the papers, all over the web - how people can claim not to know is beyond me!

 

[SuffolkDesigns]

It is a crazy increase, of what about 80%.

I send quite a few small packages that were costing £3.65 before and now are £6.75. I suspect that RM will lose a lot of business because of this.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Its hardly new that the prices were increasing - it happens EVERY year at exactly the same time, 3 or more months before it happens they give proposal details as they are regulated.

1 month before ALL account holders, post offices etc. are sent the new prices and they are made public on the RM website for all to see.

To claim that they didnt know (post offices) is utter tripe. They were sent the info, its been on the news, in the papers, all over the web - how people can claim not to know is beyond me!

I cannot say that I was aware of it.

 

[Karimbo]

I do sympathise, but try as I might I can't help thinking that for a man to collect a parcel, take it all the way to its destination, and prove that it got there safely - £6.75 sounds an absolute bargain to me.

I'd charge that for a 6 mile 15 minute drive.

not necesserily, when they've packed 100 or so parcels in the same van and they all have the same destination. That's an aweful lot of money for just one drop off

Royal Mail is inefficent and is a dinosaur thaks to the unions. All of europe has upgraded to automatic machine sorting which means that their postal service is cheaper and more efficient, less chance of human error. But in this country thanks to the unions we still have manual sorting which is extremely inefficient and prone to human error.

It's really our modern day industrial revolution style revolt, manual laborers fighting for their mind numbing jobs when machines could do a much better job and for a lot cheaper.

RM is just pricing up the only growth area they have to make up for the loss in business elsewhere. Ecommerce is big business and is their future proof income stream their business from letters has declined considerably. So they're just trying to extract as much money from their in demand market.

There are tonnes of courior companies who can deliver huge parcels for £6.75, consumers will get smarter and switch.

It just takes the p*** nowadays. Sold a xbox360 on ebay (just unit). Sold it for £40, after paypal, ebay & royal mail fees I only had £20 left.

 

[Karimbo]

Its hardly new that the prices were increasing - it happens EVERY year at exactly the same time, 3 or more months before it happens they give proposal details as they are regulated.

1 month before ALL account holders, post offices etc. are sent the new prices and they are made public on the RM website for all to see.

To claim that they didnt know (post offices) is utter tripe. They were sent the info, its been on the news, in the papers, all over the web - how people can claim not to know is beyond me!

post office staff probably just clock in, do their shift, and clock out. It doesn't affect them personally so why bother with it?

I'm guessing that's the attitude. They've been increasing their rates way above the rate of inflation for as far as I can remember. They really need to get their act together because they're pushing people to seek out alternative courier services.

 

[Esk247]

I do sympathise, but try as I might I can't help thinking that for a man to collect a parcel, take it all the way to its destination, and prove that it got there safely - £6.75 sounds an absolute bargain to me.

I'd charge that for a 6 mile 15 minute drive.

Yes but you're not transporting 80 parcels at £6.75 each to a destination.

Using your example, a charge of £35 per parcel would be cost effective...for one parcel..travelling between Middlesbrough and Leeds. Not accounting for the fact the van will be full of parcels

 

[Esk247]

post office staff probably just clock in, do their shift, and clock out. It doesn't affect them personally so why bother with it?

I'm guessing that's the attitude. They've been increasing their rates way above the rate of inflation for as far as I can remember. They really need to get their act together because they're pushing people to seek out alternative courier services.

They're trying to privatise and modernise, they want rid of the deadwood and the loss making parts of Royal Mail.

Great. Round of applause. Fantastic.

Only....most couriers don't deliver to the places Royal Mail deliver to and most couriers do not have price competitive hubs for small business parcels. They also charge a complete fortune for anything outside of the UK mainland so unless your products are £20 upwards you're in the muck really.

If you're selling on Amazon and eBay too then it's the nail in the coffin for a lot of businesses. How on earth can you make a profit on an item at £2.99 when postage will top 90p and then you've got to pay packaging too and the wholesale price..there's no margin anymore.

 

[Berkshire Business]

I also agree with what's been mentioned above, I think the RM will loose a lot of business with their increase on prices, just based on how much they are increasing the cost of each parcel by.

 

[deniser]

The crazy thing is that it is cheaper sometimes to send something abroad than to the UK.

I can send a parcel weighing 500g but which is bigger than 45 x 35 x 8 cms (eg. a parcel up to 60cms long - a standard parcel size for me) to Ireland for £4.95 but to send the same parcel to the UK will cost me £5.20 2nd class or £5.65 1st class.

 

[frenchparts]

didnt see this thread when looking but yes i am feeling this

i sell mainly on ebay

larger items i sell more of,thankfully so i use a courier

but lately have started making/selling smaller items at £6.99 with free postage

postage used to cost us £2.20

and with raw mat costs etc we were never making a big margin on the prducts anyway

but now today i have just gone to post some and was told it would be £5.??

i am just about to remove all our smaller/cheaper items off ebay untill i decide what to do,becuase at those prices i am looseing money on each one we sell and will loose money onthe 10 or so orders i currently have outstanding for that product

so thanks for that royal fail!

 

[Vectis]

If there's a cheaper alternative than the Royal Mail then obviously people should switch. If, as seems likely, there is no cheaper, convenient alternative then RM's pricing must be competitive.

Perhaps they're just bringing it up to market level?

 

[simon field]

Yes but you're not transporting 80 parcels at £6.75 each to a destination.

Using your example, a charge of £35 per parcel would be cost effective...for one parcel..travelling between Middlesbrough and Leeds. Not accounting for the fact the van will be full of parcels

If I pay someone to do a job, I'm only interested in what I get for that amount of money, I'm not interested in what else that business does for anyone else, how they make it more efficient etc, that's their business.

If I price three flat roofs up in the same area, the price is the price, no matter how convenient it may be for me to not travel here there and everywhere, it remains the same.

There are plenty of other postal services out there, so why not just shop around in the same way that you would if your car insurance suddenly took a big hike for instance?

 

[Esk247]

There are plenty of other postal services out there, so why not just shop around in the same way that you would if your car insurance suddenly took a big hike for instance?

There are plenty of other postal services like Royal Mail? Really? Where? If that's the case then surely RM would be out of work by now..can't say I've seen any other post offices around by other operators..who runs the post boxes?

Not every product can be sent by courier. We don't all deliver furniture. Some products are small boxes that couriers won't touch, they're not interested in taking 50 small packets and envelopes.

If I price three flat roofs up in the same area, the price is the price, no matter how convenient it may be for me to not travel here there and everywhere, it remains the same.

You don't seem to understand how postal services work. So you're saying we should pay the same price it would cost to drive one parcel from Scotland to Lands End? The world would end if that were the case then as every postal service in the world would be charging between £15 and £100 per parcel, no less, because hey that's how much it costs to send just one parcel somewhere with a man in a van...that's not how it works..it would be crazy if it did as it would be easier to deliver your own parcels by yourself in your own van all over the world.

 

[simon field]

Ok then, riddle me this

If it's now too expensive to send stuff about by Royal Mail, and it can be done cheaper (and still at a profit), wouldn't you expect some enterprising sorts to offer an alternative in the very near future?

You may be right in that I don't understand how the postal service works, but what I do understand is that it's not as simple as saying "but they're delivering 80 parcels out of one van so therefore I want it for 3 quid"

Someone has to collect it, drive it to a premises to be sorted manually by someone else, who then puts it in a sack, loads it into another van/lorry/train which is then driven somewhere else up the other end of the country to be sorted yet again into rounds and then brought specially to the letterbox of the person on the parcel / letter.

Wages, premises, fuel, insurance, uniforms, etc etc - the overheads will be enormous!

 

[Jeff FV]

We send a mix of large letters, small packets, and big(ish) boxes (upto circa 15kg, but the odd one is a few kg heavier than that)

Before the last Royal Mail price hike (was it only last year?) my rule of thumb was anything below about 4Kg was cheaper to send RM, above that we use a courier (UK Mail in our case - some hate 'em, but I don't have a bad word to say about them). Following that price rise, the cut off became 2KG - anything below, Royal Mail, above UKMail.

I haven't yet done enough sending/sums on the new changes, but it may be that that 2kg break point come down again, with the packets I used to send by RM going in UKMail baggit bags.

More and more I find myself looking at our products (and potential new products) and seeing if it can be sent as a large letter. The difference a few mm can make can cost £ss.

Of course, anything going to the Highland and Islands or NI, RM is (or was!) cheaper.

J

p.s. - forgot to say that we've always used RM 1st Class post, but may well switch to RM48 (which is their 'new' second class, RM24 is their 'new' 1st Class)

 

[Esk247]

Ok then, riddle me this

If it's now too expensive to send stuff about by Royal Mail, and it can be done cheaper (and still at a profit), wouldn't you expect some enterprising sorts to offer an alternative in the very near future?

You may be right in that I don't understand how the postal service works, but what I do understand is that it's not as simple as saying "but they're delivering 80 parcels out of one van so therefore I want it for 3 quid"

Someone has to collect it, drive it to a premises to be sorted manually by someone else, who then puts it in a sack, loads it into another van/lorry/train which is then driven somewhere else up the other end of the country to be sorted yet again into rounds and then brought specially to the letterbox of the person on the parcel / letter.

Wages, premises, fuel, insurance, uniforms, etc etc - the overheads will be enormous!

Oh no i mean they've worked out that they can make a profit at say 3 quid a parcel based on their average van load being 80 parcels ( or whatever the actual figure is).

So yes they could charge £20 a parcel but that isnt the RM model, they're not a courier they're a mass market service that relies on bulk to make the profit, no bulk means the prices go up, which is probably another reason because people are sending more emails now than letters (so it's been said).

It just means that Royal Mail are increasing parcel prices to ensure they are making profits on 90% of their pick up and delivery services.

It makes sense for RM as they move towards being commercially viable and completely independent, but there isn't yet a carrier for small parcels and letters that competes with RM and I don't see where one would come from.

It's the same as the Amazon thing really. There isn't a direct competitor, they're king at the moment and it will take an almighty large powerhouse to knock them off their perch.

 

[Esk247]

More and more I find myself looking at our products (and potential new products) and seeing if it can be sent as a large letter. The difference a few mm can make can cost £ss.

Of course, anything going to the Highland and Islands or NI, RM is (or was!) cheaper.

Most of our products won't fit in the new size guides even if they're in padded envelopes unfortunately. So we have to send them out as a small box, and most couriers don't do small boxes or they're too expensive for anything under 2kg so we're stuck with RM and will have to scrap our free delivery promotions as they became expensive last year but now they're just not viable at all as most of our mass market stuff is under 10 quid rrp.

It also mucks about with our whole 'The Price You See, Is The Price You Pay' flyers that went out before Christmas, as now people will have to add on postage at the checkout.

 

[greengecko]

If you're doing a large enough quantity, then shop around. We're getting £4.25ex VAT (around that anyway) for next day delivery up to 10kg, although we do turnover quite a lot of parcels weekly.

I certainly know £4.75-5.00 is quite easily achievable with a couple of couriers if you're doing 10 or so parcels a day.