New Royal Mail rates and ebay - Will it cut sales?

dougk_2

Having received my lovely Royal Mail size and weight chart thing yesterday, it got me thinking:

Although Royal Mail say 80% of letters will be the same or cheaper, in the case of most ebay sales I don't think this will hold true. The people who ebenfit most will be junk mail senders! Royal mail also say a DVD can be sent at large letter rate, but by the time you pack it nicely in a decent jiffy bag you may struggle to get it through the little window on their size!

Do you think the new postal rates will cause you ebay sales to drop?

Also I wonder if this is such a fair and justified change (because it covers the true cost of posting according to RM) why is it that airmail has not been included in the scheme as surely this is the area where space is of most precious value - in a limited size aircraft hold?

appleblossom

tbh, I don't think I'll be doing a lot of ebaying when the new rates come in. Atm, I weigh everything on digital scales before listing it, I really dont' fancy going to the post office to get the things weighed, then back again to post them if they sell, so my ebay sales will drop but thats because I won't be listing as much.

juno

It's going to affect everybody though, so while your postal rate will be more than your competitors' rates are now, they will also need to increase theirs too.

We might lose out to online retailers, but if something's only a few pounds more from a real shop people would go there instead.

pianeet

i am in charge of a mailroom at work and its definately going to put our budget up when i was reading the literature it says we will have to sort mail into three different sacks, basically small, medium, and large,
spoke to our postie about it and he says thats all very well seperating them but when they get picked up they will just go in one sack,and that its just royalmails way of sneaking the prices up,it is funny how it is not going to affect overseas mail which is still going to be charged on weight alone.

cafenervosa_2

I cant see it affecting sales, at the end of the day if people want an item they will pay what it takes. I have before now put down £4 postage rates when it in fact costs 88p to post, people still pay it because they want it. I post a lot of dvds and at the post office this particular one I was posting this one day, under the new pricing they said it would be cheaper. I think we're talking pennies here, no need to worry.

appleblossom

I don't think its the price change that will effect ppl selling, it's the new system of shape and weight = price, as I said, atm, I weigh everything as I list it to get a correct postal charge but I won't be able to do that when the new system comes in and I don't like overcharging for post so won't be able to guesstimate either.

apprentice_tycoon

My post lady was telling me that you will be able to buy the perspex shape sorter that they have in the POs, maybe some people will prefer that to the bendy free cardboard one.
She also said that 'they' were considering using they system for overseas mail after they've bedded it down in the UK

MrB_2

It's Royal Mail's way of saying thank you to all the ebayers who have helped bring the business back from 1/2 billion in the red(sarcastic, I know). It will kill Ebay as we know it. At the moment you can buy, for example, a kiddies t shirt for say 20p, p&p another 80p. Little Jonny has a t shirt he would grow out of in 3 months even if you brought it from Gap. Soon it will be buy the t shirt for 20p and then pay whatever Royal Mail decides on the day (Postmasters dicression?) for p&p, and you may as well go to Gap to but the t shirt. TNT should have a delivery network up and running by the end of the year, lets see if they are any better.

Headinaviceboy

Royal Mail are changing their prices to reflect the costs. They currently lose money on a lot of what goes through their network from EBAY Sales. The reason AIRMAIL isn't going up is because Royal Mail are charged by other postal authorities based on a Universal system so cannot change their pricing structure for these items.
Royal MAil have bought plastic versions of the guides from Avery Berkel for their own staff to use. Avery are selling them to companies now for about £25 ish.

Headinaviceboy

Try this link. http://www.averyweigh-tronix.com/pip/ to see how much they are.

dougk_2

Headinaviceboy wrote:

Try this link. http://www.averyweigh-tronix.com/pip/ to see how much they are.

What a complete rip-off they can't cost very much to make at all (less than a quid i reckon). Perhaps I should design a cheaper version out of mdf and flog it on ebay!.....there again the postage will probably make it more expensive :rotfl: