New postal charges

[gyronny]

Just sent off my first heavy book under the new postal rates. Ouch!!
I'll be using couriers much more in future, cheaper, and they pick up from my house.
Post Office seems to be on a self destruct path these days, perhaps they want to get out of mail delivery and just sell insurance and things.
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh...................

[emporiumdays]

Just sent off my first heavy book under the new postal rates. Ouch!!
I'll be using couriers much more in future, cheaper, and they pick up from my house.
Post Office seems to be on a self destruct path these days, perhaps they want to get out of mail delivery and just sell insurance and things.
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh...................

Ha .... That's funny gyronny ...... (the bit about the Post Office being on a 'self destruct' path)....

Is it true that over there in the UK, Couriers can compete (price wise) with your postal system?
Like - can they get as low in price? or is it that (given that they pickup) there's only a small extra cost?

[astral276]

The Post Office and Royal Mail are not the same thing. The Post Office has nothing to do with postal prices and Royal Mail has nothing to do with selling insurance, savings, etc.

[emporiumdays]

We have what we call 'Post Offices' in Australia - ie: the place you go to buy stamps, get postage calculated and paid, buy packing materials etc etc. It's the commom name used, but the postal services are provided by "Australia Post"

Australia Post handles - letters services; agency services / retail merchandise; and parcels.
Couriers prices in Australia are generally much higher than Australia Post prices.

That's why I was wondering whether your couriers can compete (price wise) with your postal system.

[sunnydevon2011]

the couriers here are very good value(on bigger items), much better than going to the post office and standing in a queue with smelly people, ahhhhh what a lovely day sun is shining birds are singing.

[emporiumdays]

Yeah sunnydevon .... I'd imagine courier runs are a lot more practical in the UK. You have over 700 listings for the UK market, only 6 for Australia - again - I guess that comes down to postal costs.

[suesjools]

Just sent off my first heavy book under the new postal rates. Ouch!!
I'll be using couriers much more in future, cheaper, and they pick up from my house.
Post Office seems to be on a self destruct path these days, perhaps they want to get out of mail delivery and just sell insurance and things.
Sighhhhhhhhhhhhh...................

Our P.O. here seems to have the same idea (self destruction). Unfortunately, UPS and FedEx aren't any better price-wise. It does make me wonder sometimes...

Best wishes for many sales to all,

[gyronny]

Hi Steve, yes to your original question, couriers can compete.
I've been using myHermes for heavier parcels for the last 9 months or so, and now the mail prices have gone up so much, I'll be using them more
Royal Mail small packet 1.25kg £4.90

Royal Mail Parcel Post up to 2kg £4.40

my Hermes 1kg to 2kg £4.19 (and collected from your house)

The price for Royal Mail climbs steeply after the weighs shown above

[emporiumdays]

Interesting......

Well where I live, what's called a 'small parcel' (up to 250 grams) can be sent to the opposite side of Australia for $4.75 (via Australia Post).(250gram to 500gram = $6.05 500gram to 1Kg = $12.10)

The same parcel, sent via a courier is $14.80. (however it can be up to 5Kg)

In Australia there's not enough volume of parcels to get the price down in order to compete with Australia Post. (Plus the spread of the population makes efficient courier pickup rather challenging to say the least).
Even regional deliveries (within the same States of Australia), are still around $14.80 by courier.

The UK population being quite sizable and (relatively) compact makes the courier approach more viable.

[jewlsgems]

...Postage gets costly...I only sell little light items less than 100g.
...So the little padded envelope parcel is only 0.66p first class post.

Must be very hot there Steve..lookin at the hat that is Ha!