Royal Mail clarifying letter vs small packet for international post

campdave

The dimensions haven't changed on Royal Mail's website, until they do, I can see no justification for changing my prices.

http://www.royalmail.com/personal/international-delivery/airmail

I just put stamps on and pop them in the post box, as both post offices I use insist on sending items in jiffys as small packets since the horizon update with the last price rises.

As BigJonnyB says, I expect the change to be introduced with the forthcoming price rise, when all the changes can be made in one swoop rather than one change now and another in a couple of weeks.

Business rates change on 2 April, and as they have to give 30 days notice for price changes, I'd expect an announcement by the end of next week at the latest.

BigJonnyB

soolin wrote: »

I suppose the question would be would you charge a customer for a letter rate if it was say an obvious 'packet' or do you count a letter as only something that looks like a letter?

We were instructed (around last May I believe when they realised what a mess the new tariff was) that an item had to contain a letter to go letter rate. So a 30g packet shaped item that had a letter in could still go by the cheaper rate. No letter and it's supposed to go by small packet.

Our regular ebayers/ online sellers just popped in notes like 'Hope the weather is well and you enjoy your item'. We've never had a returned item or an item surcharged etc, and we're a fairly sizeable rural office.

I'd imagine RM have realised that the rules on this are so vague that they need to add in the sizing element to try and be more definitive. Personally I'd rather they just had one standard airmail rate, the whole letter/ small packet/ printed papers criteria causes no end of problems!

campdave

Quite, I can't see how a 10g item to Australia is 4 times more expensive to process if there isn't a letter inside it. Whilst I appreciate the clarification that seems to be coming, I obviously don't appreciate the price rise that comes with it and the lost sales it will cost me.

As someone who works for the post office, going back to my original post, how likely is it I could get away with posting my items that are a shade over 5mm at letter rate if this does come in, based on the fact that when I started selling on ebay 99.9% of my items I posted with regular second class stamps inland made it there fine?

macfly

It would need an act of parliament to change this rate business.
It was introduced to make the postage of religious material, newspapers and other "educational" mail cheaper to send. That was when we considered ourselves the educators of the empire.

campdave

New prices out today, and unless I'm missing something, no reference to the 0.5cm thickness for a letter is contained in the service document (P14):

http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/RoyalMail_OurServices_April2013.pdf

soolin

campdave wrote: »

New prices out today, and unless I'm missing something, no reference to the 0.5cm thickness for a letter is contained in the service document (P14):

http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/files/RoyalMail_OurServices_April2013.pdf

I've had a look and can't see anything either. If I'm reading it correctly virtually half of my goods will now be cheaper to send airmail than to send within the UK.

campdave

Good point, especially with the crazy small/large parcel charges.

The length of an international exceeds the maximum length in the Overseas POstal Scheme, and it also says the maximum weight for an overseas letter is 2kg when it says 100g in the scheme.

So much for clarification!

campdave

Drat - is coming in, but not yet.

http://www.royalmail.com/termschanges#New Royal Mail International Postal Schemes