MSE News: Stamp prices likely to rise as cap confirmed

edinburgher

So what prevents someone from buying thousands of stamps now then selling them off at a higher price later?

Good idea - I owe £115k on my mortgage - if I buy 2.3 million now and resell them at 5p profit each I'm home free (so to speak)

jrawle

As soon as I saw the announcement, I ordered 100 of each class via the Royal Mail website. What other investment can give a 35% return in just over a month, plus be inflation-proofed on top of that?

Those should keep me going a good many years. They can be combined to make parcel/international postage too.

Suarez

Sue-UU wrote: »

This is an absolute disgrace and should not be allowed! :mad: I'm sure this sort of hike will spell the end to Christmas cards - it certainly will for me as I just can't afford that sort of cost.

Sue

What about high street shops closing down because people can get stuff cheaper from online shops/ebay?

Derivative

Does anyone have a chart of historical stamp prices?
Mainly interested in the last 20 years or so.

It does seem to be rocketing in recent years, I think First Class were at 20-30p within my lifetime.

custardy

Derivative wrote: »

Does anyone have a chart of historical stamp prices?
Mainly interested in the last 20 years or so.

It does seem to be rocketing in recent years, I think First Class were at 20-30p within my lifetime.

why 20 years?
would you cut of at the point the market was opened up?

veganline

Agree with this question

custardy wrote: »

So Sue do you have an answer for making up lost revenue?/QUOTE]

I suggest an end to franking, and taxing these: letterboxes which are

1. low
2. small
3. stiff
4. add 2 walks of a garden path to each delivery round
5. are in areas that other companies charge more to reach
6. don't have a clear street number (this picture shows a clear number on a house in London, but it fails on points 1-4)

The facts are cheap to prove and the money could be collected on top of community charge, for paying towards delivery workers. Ask me to think of detail if you want, because I haven't thought of it yet! I do know that people with expensive delivery points cost all of us who pay a flat rate to send or recieve parcels. I don't see why they shouldn't pay more subsidy (and me because I fail on point 4)

The Ofcom solution is for a pair of my very good shoes @ 1-2kg to cost £5.30 instead of £4.41 parcel post. Meanwhile Collectplus.co.uk / Yodel will deliver to most letterboxes for £4 including the VAT which Royal Mail don't have to pay. So more people will use Yodel aka Collectplus delivery to the door, and this is a less reliable service which fills the streets with more vans.

On a different point I suggest that Royal Mail ends cut-rate franking. It's an obsolete system invented before online postage. It's fiddly. It supports an un-necessary & complex industry which eats-up most of the saving to senders by adding extra costs. If online postage were improved, tweaked to work with computer-compatable scales, I think plenty of businesses would give up the headache of fanking even at the current prices.

custardy

veganline wrote: »

Agree with this question

custardy wrote: »

So Sue do you have an answer for making up lost revenue?/QUOTE]

I suggest an end to franking, and taxing these: letterboxes which are

1. low
2. small
3. stiff
4. add 2 walks of a garden path to each delivery round
5. are in areas that other companies charge more to reach
6. don't have a clear street number (this picture shows a clear number on a house in London, but it fails on points 1-4)

The facts are cheap to prove and the money could be collected on top of community charge, for paying towards delivery workers. Ask me to think of detail if you want, because I haven't thought of it yet! I do know that people with expensive delivery points cost all of us who pay a flat rate to send or recieve parcels. I don't see why they shouldn't pay more subsidy (and me because I fail on point 4)

The Ofcom solution is for a pair of my very good shoes @ 1-2kg to cost £5.30 instead of £4.31 parcel post. Meanwhile Collectplus.co.uk / Yodel will deliver to most letterboxes for £4 including the VAT which Royal Mail don't have to pay. So more people will use Yodel aka Collectplus delivery to the door, and this is a less reliable service which fills the streets with more vans.

On a different point I suggest that Royal Mail ends cut-rate franking. It's an obsolete system invented before online postage. It's fiddly. It supports an un-necessary & complex industry which eats-up most of the saving to senders by adding extra costs. If online postage were improved, tweaked to work with computer-compatable scales, I think plenty of businesses would give up the headache of fanking even at the current prices.

the proble with the letterbox is there is no standard size/position
it could easily have been done and has been raised many times

As it stands,a delivery point can take up to 15 minutes
you are talking about bringing in zonal pricing
a move that has been stopped for RM before
Realistically the USO will go
The system in place no will be long gone soon.

Edwardia

I think we should have lockable mail boxes like US.

Seems to me mass buying of stamps marked 1st and 2nd will push RM into pricing them again,

For all our so called technology and modernisation, if you read books written in 1930s you find that post always arrived in time for breakfast.

I have post Mondays around 11am and Saturdays about 8am but otherwise not unless small packets eg books and DVDs and then they tend to be grouped by RM. I did once get three RM deliveries in one day, all by van.

With all the internet shopping and eBaying going on, I don't understand why RM isn't making a profit.

cepheus

jrawle wrote: »

As soon as I saw the announcement, I ordered 100 of each class via the Royal Mail website. What other investment can give a 35% return in just over a month, plus be inflation-proofed on top of that?

Those should keep me going a good many years. They can be combined to make parcel/international postage too.

I was half serious you really could use this as a serious investment, however what happens if RM make old stamps invalid in say a years time like old notes? I would like to see some guarantee they would stil be valid 10-20 years into the future. Would it be legal to sell them on?

veganline

Does anyone know why franking customers pay less those of us with kitchen scales and an online postage account? I've never understood! (Moneysavers take note that you can save 1% with a cashback credit card)