P&P charges for a book

Obviously_the_best

I know alot of people hate couriers but, someone really ought to introduce sellers to hermes or collect+

Mistral001

Its a pity Royal Mail does not have a reduced rate for books. they used to have one for newspapers as far as I know (maybe they still have). You would need to have a special package that shows that there is a book inside.

soolin

Mistral001 wrote: »

Its a pity Royal Mail does not have a reduced rate for books. they used to have one for newspapers as far as I know (maybe they still have). You would need to have a special package that shows that there is a book inside.

Yes many years ago there was a printed paper rate. However the weight is the same regardless of what is in the package so I cna't see any reason why RM would want printed papers to be any different cost wise if they all end up in the same posties bag.

macfly

I don't remember any such service domestically, only overseas.
That was granted to facilitate the "education" of the rest of the world, the bits we had conquered. Newspapers, books and religious pamphlets were the object of this policy.
The pricing in proportion policy was brought in for sensible reasons. It's the way most of the world prices it's post.
One company I dealt with sent air conditioning filters out by post. These were in large packets, but weighed next to nothing. The work involved in delivery was hugely disproportionate to the amount charged.
Stand in a PO queue at Christmas and count how many people say "costs more than the card" when posting to Australia etc.

Mistral001

macfly wrote: »

I don't remember any such service domestically, only overseas.
That was granted to facilitate the "education" of the rest of the world, the bits we had conquered. Newspapers, books and religious pamphlets were the object of this policy.
The pricing in proportion policy was brought in for sensible reasons. It's the way most of the world prices it's post.
One company I dealt with sent air conditioning filters out by post. These were in large packets, but weighed next to nothing. The work involved in delivery was hugely disproportionate to the amount charged.
Stand in a PO queue at Christmas and count how many people say "costs more than the card" when posting to Australia etc.

Yes I remember that. I remember sending newspapers to relatives living abroad.

We do not have VAT on books and printed material unlike many other European countries, so there is a political precedent.

Just looked up whether VAT is charged on postal services. In fact they are not if it is delivered by the Post Office but is if delivered by courier. Interesting.

Cannot see more VAT exempt items in present state the public finances are in though.

custardy

RHemmings wrote: »

I'll say up front that this is a pretty trivial post. But, I was surprised at how much postage was charged on a book I just received. The p&p charges in the auction were £2.99. So, I thought to myself that was a fair amount of p&p for a book, and was peering at the sticker to see how much was actually charged. £3.05! So even ignoring the cost of the padded envelope, the seller hasn't covered their p&p costs with their charge. And the book was only £1.99 in itself.

It's only a medium sized hardback which fit through our standard post slot. It can't cost the PO that much more to send the book than a standard letter can it? Or does it?

It seems to me that the big winner financially in the transaction is more likely to be the PO rather than the seller.

before machine sorting maybe
however the machines that sort the letters wont be sorting that book
so the costs rise
remember RM don't always make any money on a letter so its not exactly a good benchmark