Great Tips to Cut Postage Costs Hunt

mhoc

I rang and checked that these new rates only apply to in-land post.

So an article going as a packet in the UK which weighs 105g would cost £1.19 first or £1.04 second, the same packet sent to Europe wold cost about the same! Does that make sense!

Mary

ukmonkey

fatboyonadiet wrote:

Link doesn't work, how can I get one of the price guides? Can't seem to find anything on the PO site.

All UK addresses will be getting a size guide delivered during August.

For more info about PiP, see Try http://www.royalmail.com/pip/ and click on "Information for personal customers"

Hope this helps.

ukmonkey

Midi wrote:

It will be interesting to see how the 5mm thick limit is interpreted. If you fold 10 or so A4 sheets in half they will push out the envelope to more than 5mm where they are folded. You can squeeze it back below 5mm of course but it springs out again when released.

I seem to recall that when we playing about in our office, upto 12 sheets of A4 can be folded in half and still go as a letter. However, it all depends what quality (gsm) of paper you are using.

ukmonkey

dickietruncheon wrote:

Buy books of 1st or 2nd class stamps in bulk (that is what the bulk suppliers do). Even when the price of postage goes up you can still use the stamps as 1st or 2nd class (even years later) - or sell them at a profit on ebay!!!

Very good point.

Also, it is worth noting that you'll shortly see "Large Letter" stamps on sale. The stamps are literaly larger than normal stamps!

expect these in the next day or two, if they're not already on sale.

ukmonkey

NatFeerick wrote:

By the way 'ukmonkey', although I agree fraud should be discouraged, the ridiculous way these new price structures work only serves to defraud us consumers of our hard-earned. Congratulations to the overpaid consultant in Royal Mail who worked out how much more they could rake in if they put common A4 envelopes in the small packet category!!

You are wrong. C4 envelopes (324x229mm) will be classed as a large letter (max 353x250mm), unless it is thicker than 25mm or heavier than 750g.

How is it defrauding anyone?

You can choose to use another company, if you can find one that will delivery your letter to any UK address for the same LOW LOW price.

No, I didn't think so.

Ask yourself why.

The Government have opened up the Postal Market to "full competition" a few years ahead of the rest of Europe, why? The Government is the sole shareholder of Royal Mail Group PLC, call me a cynic, but why would the Government open up competition earlier than Europe required it to do so, and to put it's company (Royal Mail Group PLC) under pressure earlier than they needed to.

Royal Mail are facing competition, but not full competition. Other companies are "cherry picking" the most lucrative parts of the market. Do you think you'll see TNT getting in a boat and rowing to the tiny islands off Scotland etc any time soon? I certainly doubt it.

What do you expect Royal Mail to do when this "cherry picking2 is [quite blatently] taking place? They have to do something to bring prices more into line with costs, and this is one of the main things.

As much as people slate Royal Mail, we have one of the best (if not THE best) Postal Services in Europe, if not the world. You get your mail delivered by early-mid afternoon, to your door (in almost all cases), you pay the same price for a letter/packet no matter whether it is going 3 miles away or 300 miles away.

I can't help thinking that a lot of us (consumers) are like sheep in this respect, what I mean is (before you all flame me!) that until a few years ago, there was never any press coverage (or certainly very little, I should say) about Royal Mail, now, every little tiny thing is picked up on by the press (which is a good thing in most respects, so they should bde!) and suddenly you hear everyone whinging about how bad the postal service is.

If I gave you 10 letters and £3.20 would you deliver them to rural Wales, with 9 of them getting there the very next day? I strongly doubt it.

Yes, we should complain where the complaint is justified, but please don't believe all of what you read in the Daily Mail et al.

ukmonkey

NatFeerick wrote:

Here's a tip - the envelopes we all refer to as A4 are longer than actual A4 and fall outside of the letter rate, meaning it would be treated as a small packet.

To reiterate, it wouldn't be classed as a packet, it would be a "large letter".

ayla261

ukmonkey wrote:

You can choose to use another company, if you can find one that will delivery your letter to any UK address for the same LOW LOW price.

:mad: main point of that being IF you can find one - forget the low price, just finding an alternative to the post office is virtually impossible down my way

ukmonkey

mhoc wrote:

I used to reuse the large A4 envlopes that came in the post by sticking a white label over the address and stamp. I have been trying to use them all up this week because most of them would become small packets next week.

Although the fact that you are recycling envelopes is commendable, you might be causing yourself more problems.

When recycling ennvelopes, as well as covering the original address and postage mark, you should also check to see if there is a series of little red line (a bit like a mini barcode, shorter lines, but much more of them). If there is, it is important that you cover these well, as the sorting machinary uses these lines to route the letters, so if you didn't cover them, they would possibly get routed incorrectly, as the "little red lines" will contain details of the routing for the original address.

I hope this makes sense.

As I've previously stated (I want to make this clear as there seems to be a HUGE mis-understanding here), C4 envelopes will, in most cases, NOT be packets.

Please refer to http://www.royalmail.com/pip/

Hope this helps!

ukmonkey

ayla261 wrote:

ukmonkey wrote:

You can choose to use another company, if you can find one that will delivery your letter to any UK address for the same LOW LOW price.

:mad: main point of that being IF you can find one - forget the low price, just finding an alternative to the post office is virtually impossible down my way

My point exactly.

ukmonkey

mhoc wrote:

I rang and checked that these new rates only apply to in-land post.

So an article going as a packet in the UK which weighs 105g would cost £1.19 first or £1.04 second, the same packet sent to Europe wold cost about the same! Does that make sense!

Mary

Mary, that is the case, as crazy as it seems.

I suspect that PiP will be introduced for internation mail in the next few years, although I need to make it clear that this is MY OPINION.