Posting cost on business account

ballisticbrian

Just received through the post a set of bicycle lights thicker than 2.5cm (about 4 cm thick) item and postage delivered for £1.99 from within the UK.

How is this possible? Have some firms got negotiated rates with Royal Mail? And if so why is no such rate card available when searching for business rates, all you are offered is the standard business account rates? The item concerned had been ink stamped with packet post printed impression.

custardy

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Just received through the post a set of bicycle lights thicker than 2.5cm (about 4 cm thick) item and postage delivered for £1.99 from within the UK.

How is this possible? Have some firms got negotiated rates with Royal Mail? And if so why is no such rate card available when searching for business rates, all you are offered is the standard business account rates? The item concerned had been ink stamped with packet post printed impression.

You mean you were charged £1.99?

TKPeters

Packetpost with PPI
Rates depends on volume

theonlywayisup

And the PPI rates aren't subject to small/medium parcel sizes unlike counter purchases.

RFW

I'm pretty sure you can get a rate a bit lower than that too. Not sure why anyone would choose to have it showing on the parcel though.

theonlywayisup

I think the OP says the item and delivery cost £1.99 rather than the post was shown as £1.99.

forgotmyname

Probably get it delivered from China for even less. Work that one out.

ballisticbrian

I think the OP says the item and delivery cost £1.99 rather than the post was shown as £1.99.

Yes, that's right, the LED bicycle lights and the the postage was £1.99. The postage on this would cost me £2.50.

If it's "Packetpost with PPI", what kind of volumes are we talking about?

RFW

ballisticbrian wrote: »

Yes, that's right, the LED bicycle lights and the the postage was £1.99. The postage on this would cost me £2.50.

If it's "Packetpost with PPI", what kind of volumes are we talking about?

I don't know on the postage, it strikes me that some big volume sellers sell a variety of products and they must work on averages. There's certainly some sellers who are happy to send out items at a loss. The reasons for that will obviously vary. I'd like to think that they know a secret formula that I've not yet stumbled upon. More likely they've got too much stock and don't know how to buy and sell.

I've just come across a seller selling an identical item to one I sell using fulfill by Amazon. I know the product, size and weight, they won't be getting 10p an item back from Amazon. The product costs me 80p, I can't see they'd be paying much less.

Working out how some people sell at a profit is often beyond me.

If you watched the latest Dragon's Den, you'd see someone who had sold (I think these were the figures) £300,000 of stock for £180,000. Having money and investors is not always a good sign that someone knows what they are doing. Perhaps they want the vanity of turnover to impress a bank manager or investor.

ballisticbrian

I feel certain that the most basic reason for wanting to make a loss is trying to beef up the package volume to get the postage discount. i.e. We'll sell 100,000 items a year with no profit so that the postage on the remaining stock is reduced to 50p or whatever.

I wouldn't mind finding out what these rates and discounted volumes are so I could put some figures into the equation.



edited to clarify that this would have the effect of reducing the postage on all the stock providing the seller had reached the qualifying levels.

soolin

RFW wrote: »

I

If you watched the latest Dragon's Den, you'd see someone who had sold (I think these were the figures) £300,000 of stock for £180,000. Having money and investors is not always a good sign that someone knows what they are doing. Perhaps they want the vanity of turnover to impress a bank manager or investor.

I watched that one last night- Peter Jones was wonderful when he said something like 'you do know that you are supposed to sell your items for more than the basic cost of them?'. The business lady just seemed to accept that all businesses made a loss in the first year- but failed to understand the difference between a start up loss of purchasing equipment and advertising for a new business, with a real loss of selling item cheaper than it costs to buy. Unfortunately I see many an ebayer like that.

Getting back on topic it used to be a good business move if your p and p stars were low to sell with postage, but to charge less than the stamp- that way people would feel mean if they gave you less than 5*. No need now though that there is an automatic 5* for 'free postage'.