Royal Mail barcoding stamps - existing stamps valid only until 31 Jan 2023

soolin

Ineedaservant said:

If you have a large surplus of stamps, you could ask all your friends and family to buy them from you as needed.  This would not only help to reduce your stock but also give you time to see how the swap system pans out.  I suspect that there will be many problems occur before the deadline for using them up happens.

No one sends post anymore though, at best most of my family need about 6 stamps a year for birthday cards, and even then we see a lot of each other so tend to hand delivery anyway. 

I asked in the post office today if they had any leaflets or information about it, and whilst they were vaguely aware that stamps were changing and could be swapped they didn’t know any more than the fact they will be selling the new bar coded ones ‘soon’.

Frogletina

I think stamps have risen in price quite a bit since I bought about £40 worth - but I still won't have used them all by next year.

My Christmas card list has reduced over the years and I usually send birthday wishes via Facebook instead of cards now, except for a few individuals. I'm lucky if I count my birthday cards on more than one hand, even with the milestone birthday I had last year. Most of those arrived along with Christmas cards so only used one stamp for the two cards! 

soolin

I was at my local mail centre today chatting to some friendly counter staff I know and they had no idea at all about this change to bar coded stamps. They said although they sell stamps and accept parcels (but are not post office counters) no one has said anything to them and they have the usual orders of stamps arriving as normal. One went as far as to suggest I must have misunderstood as it would seem odd that staff selling stamps over the counter were not aware of the imminent change. 

jon81uk

I'm guessing as there is two years until they are withdrawn and the new ones are barely on sale yet, its going to be at least six months until we really hear much about them.
In a years time when its only 12 months unitl expiry of old stamps I expect there will be a large marketing campaign about swapping them.
For now the press release was just an FYI.

Spoonie_Turtle

jon81uk said:

I'm guessing as there is two years until they are withdrawn and the new ones are barely on sale yet, its going to be at least six months until we really hear much about them.
In a years time when its only 12 months unitl expiry of old stamps I expect there will be a large marketing campaign about swapping them.
For now the press release was just an FYI.

We're in 2022   I thought it was two years, at first, but no!

jon81uk

Spoonie_Turtle said:

jon81uk said:

I'm guessing as there is two years until they are withdrawn and the new ones are barely on sale yet, its going to be at least six months until we really hear much about them.
In a years time when its only 12 months unitl expiry of old stamps I expect there will be a large marketing campaign about swapping them.
For now the press release was just an FYI.

We're in 2022   I thought it was two years, at first, but no!

oooops.
Ignore me then. Royal Mail do need to step up the marketing soon!

soolin

That was what I was thinking, less than a year to go before the old derivatives cannot be used- perhaps they are going for a summer campaign to make people aware?

mjm3346

My guess is the average user maybe has a partially used book of 1st and/or 2nd class stamps and with over 8 months to use them up inc Christmas it's probably not an issue for them

I know (particularly younger) people who only buy a stamp on the vary rare occasion they need to use one so these changes would pretty much have zero impact on them

davidian84

So to be clear are all stamp sized stamps going to expire, but all other stamps are fine

cx6

um what is a stamp-sized stamp ?