25,000 posties going on strike this weekend???

RFW

cyril82 wrote: »

going on strike? it's a wonder they have any mail to post, just had another two packages literally thrown back at me in my local post office and refused to accept them, why? because i paid for it online.

I'd have thought given the strikes that the media would be very interested in a Post Office refusing mail. I can understand it as the Post Offices don't get paid for handling it, a very silly system.

It would make you wonder if online prepaid postage is handled badly if they do accept it from you.

Hezzawithkids

custardy wrote: »

right,so whats your views on downstream access mail?

I have no idea what that is

custardy

Hezzawithkids wrote: »

I have no idea what that is

well since you were pointing out RM "losing its sub £1 monopoly" i assumed you were fully versed

cyril82

RFW wrote: »

I'd have thought given the strikes that the media would be very interested in a Post Office refusing mail. I can understand it as the Post Offices don't get paid for handling it, a very silly system..

It turns out though that they do get paid, the problem is most postmasters are too stuck in the nineteen hundreds to understand and embrace the new technological age, if they scan the item they get paid a handling fee the guy at the post office i ended up taking it too actually said the guy would have got more for doing my two specials than most the other stuff he's done all day.

i was disgusted at them not accepting the packages though at the end of the day, as i pointed out, i am a customer i have paid for a service and i expect to receive that service, part of which relies on my post office accepting the parcel in the first place, i don't care about internal politics and disputes, if they are not happy with what they get paid take it up with their superiors not the customer.

Royal mail are a disgrace from top to bottom, if they were not cheap who'd use em?

RFW wrote: »

It would make you wonder if online prepaid postage is handled badly if they do accept it from you.

Well from my experience it's handled really badly, just before he threw them back at me he literally threw them on the floor, two brand new mobile phones worth £100 each. not exactly how i'd like my speacial delivery items to be handled.

junkmayle

Hezzawithkids - Basically, it means all the post you receive with UK Mail, Citipost etc as a postmark. These companies simply collect and distribute the mail (most profitable part) but hand it over to Royal Mail to actually deliver (not much profit at all). In another year or two, when these companies cream off the profitable areas where RM used to make up for the unprofitable part, stamps will probably be a minimum of £1, or maybe a distance factor might have to be added. Screw your ebay up then, wont it? Do you really believe that there is any profit to be made on a first class stamp when the recipient may live 2 miles down an unmade road? See how much TNT quote to deliver a letter down the same road. For all its faults, you will miss Royal Mail when Fraud Mandelson finally destroys it.

cyril82

junkmayle wrote: »

Hezzawithkids - Basically, it means all the post you receive with UK Mail, Citipost etc as a postmark. These companies simply collect and distribute the mail (most profitable part) but hand it over to Royal Mail to actually deliver (not much profit at all)..

Are you seriously trying to suggest that royal mail deliver citipost and tnt's mail for free? these companies pay them to deliver it at a discount obviously due to bulk but all couriers offer discount for bulk mailing.

junkmayle wrote: »

In another year or two, when these companies cream off the profitable areas where RM used to make up for the unprofitable part, stamps will probably be a minimum of £1, or maybe a distance factor might have to be added. Screw your ebay up then, wont it?.

Not many items sold on ebay can be sent for the price of a stamp so your quip is a little off the mark, if royal mail embraced the ebay sellers who send literally millions of mostly recorded and special delivery parcels (not tracked not covered by paypal) it might actually help prop up the losses of the old dear sending a second class letter to her son who lives on the Shetland islands just to ask how he's doing these days.

junkmayale wrote: »

Do you really believe that there is any profit to be made on a first class stamp when the recipient may live 2 miles down an unmade road? See how much TNT quote to deliver a letter down the same road. For all its faults, you will miss Royal Mail when Fraud Mandelson finally destroys it.

Do you really believe that ebay sellers are selling items that can be sent for the price of a first class stamp? we send mostly recorded or special, am i right fellow ebayers?

custardy

cyril82 wrote: »

Are you seriously trying to suggest that royal mail deliver citipost and tnt's mail for free? these companies pay them to deliver it at a discount obviously due to bulk but all couriers offer discount for bulk mailing.

couriers set their own prices
RM's are set by a regulator
down stream access mail isnt a discount,its a rate which RM have asked for many years to be increased.how much profit would RM make on sub 10p a letter?

soolin

cyril82 wrote: »

Do you really believe that ebay sellers are selling items that can be sent for the price of a first class stamp? we send mostly recorded or special, am i right fellow ebayers?

I agree that the majority of my items are over £1 in post costs, however I never use recorded and would only use special for items over £39 and that doesn't form a large percentage of my sales. For me probably less than 1% would be sent at an enhanced service.

cyril82

soolin wrote: »

I agree that the majority of my items are over £1 in post costs, however I never use recorded and would only use special for items over £39 and that doesn't form a large percentage of my sales. For me probably less than 1% would be sent at an enhanced service.

ok but you sell books right? so you still pay much more than the price of a standard first class stamp to deliver something that really has very little more expense involved in delivery than a standard letter.

and i bet you send a few too, you must do for it to be worthwhile, so even you, whom i would place in the lower category of ebayers in terms of spend on postage, are much more profitable to royal mail than the average private customer who sends a couple of first class or second class letters a month.

i'd therefore argue that it is ebayers who in no small part subsidise the loss incurred in delivering the average first and second class letter sent by private customers and so maintain that junkmayale's quip was aimed in the wrong direction, it is private customer they lose on, not businesses.

soolin

I think that books are proprtionally expensive compared to other items (but then I would wouldn't I!) as a standard paperback costs me a minimum of £1.85 to send. However most of my books can go at £5 or less so I am not in the right ball park for using couriers.

Even as a small seller which I class myself as, my post office spend is in the thousands every year.