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Are there any alternatives to Royal Mail after the price changes from 30 April 2012?

dragonfruit
dragonfruit Posts: 168 Forumite
Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
Are there any alternatives to Royal Mail after the price changes from 30 April 2012?

Particularly painful is the huge increase in price for international mail, like small packets / printed papers up to 100 g and above.

Would there be a way to send letters / small packets / printed matter in the UK and internationally cheaper than by Royal Mail after 30 April for personal customers?
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Comments

  • RFW
    RFW Posts: 10,425 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Are there any alternatives to Royal Mail after the price changes from 30 April 2012?

    Particularly painful is the huge increase in price for international mail, like small packets / printed papers up to 100 g and above.

    Would there be a way to send letters / small packets / printed matter in the UK and internationally cheaper than by Royal Mail after 30 April for personal customers?
    International post is unlikely still for anything under 1kg. Cheapest couriers will come in at around £10 for some of Europe. I can't see it being worth anyone making any good offers of better rates for personal customers.

    Someone else may know better. I was going to ask if anyone knew of any rates for up to 750g and then 1kg parcels for Europe and possibly Worldwide.
    .
  • macfly
    macfly Posts: 2,728 Forumite
    There is no alternative.
  • RFW
    RFW Posts: 10,425 Forumite
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    macfly wrote: »
    There is no alternative.
    There's actually quite a lot of alternatives, none of them will be cheaper though;)
    .
  • dragonfruit
    dragonfruit Posts: 168 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    RFW wrote: »
    There's actually quite a lot of alternatives, none of them will be cheaper though;)

    Even within the UK?
  • soolin
    soolin Posts: 74,407 Ambassador
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    Even within the UK?

    Especially within the UK.

    The packet price will be £2.20 up to 750g, I don't think any courier at all has prices starting that low do they?
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  • dragonfruit
    dragonfruit Posts: 168 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    soolin wrote: »
    Especially within the UK.

    The packet price will be £2.20 up to 750g, I don't think any courier at all has prices starting that low do they?

    But, up to 1 kg MyHermes courier will be cheaper (even without the promotional code).
    With the promotional code giving 25% reduction (CTLNS11) it is cheaper even now, however the code is for first time users only.
  • clive12
    clive12 Posts: 70 Forumite
    RFW wrote: »
    There's actually quite a lot of alternatives, none of them will be cheaper though;)

    to echo this point there are lots of alternatives but they come in generally more expensive and provide a worse service.
  • RFW
    RFW Posts: 10,425 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    soolin wrote: »
    Especially within the UK.

    The packet price will be £2.20 up to 750g, I don't think any courier at all has prices starting that low do they?
    You can probably get quite a few couriers to beat that for more weight, but you'd need to be a heavy volume customer and as said elsewhere the service might not always be up to much.

    Even though there's a lot of us complaining the prices are still pretty good when you see what's involved, for the UK, offering a service that can deliver to all extremes of the British Isles for a flat fee. For overseas post there are at least two postal services involved, all for one price.
    .
  • dragonfruit
    dragonfruit Posts: 168 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    RFW wrote: »
    Even though there's a lot of us complaining the prices are still pretty good when you see what's involved, for the UK, offering a service that can deliver to all extremes of the British Isles for a flat fee. For overseas post there are at least two postal services involved, all for one price.

    But if you compare the prices with USA then it is expensive, and they have to cover much greater distances than in the UK.
  • dragonfruit
    dragonfruit Posts: 168 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    edited 17 April 2012 at 7:52PM
    RFW wrote: »
    Even though there's a lot of us complaining the prices are still pretty good when you see what's involved, for the UK, offering a service that can deliver to all extremes of the British Isles for a flat fee. For overseas post there are at least two postal services involved, all for one price.

    So how was the Royal Mail able to run their service for half that price not that long time ago (like 7, 10 years ago and earlier)?
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