Stamp prices to rise by up to 15% - but there's a way to beat the hike

MikeJXE

To the average person I wouldn't think it means much.

Posting mail has gone down dramatically so post less buy less 

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

Well I'm only here to provide the idea, it's up to you to implement. It's not really a problem......you have to think out of the box and find solutions.  There are plenty of zero fee sales opportunities that can undercut retail prices. With a 15% price increase on April 3rd and a product that doesnt deteriorate or devalue over time it's a no brainer surely. 

Whilst yours might be an ‘off the wall’ suggestion I don’t see it as a no brainier at all. Any business needs to account for on costs, it isn’t simply a case of buy at X and sell at Y , ignoring other costs causes a lot of businesses to make losses when they truly believe they are making profits. You are also looking at a hypothetically huge money pot to start and very poor headline profits even before costs. I suspect most businesses would be looking to make at least 50-100% profit on original outlay before costs, and on some of the boards I frequent many sellers wouldn’t bother with anything less than 300% profit on a low cost item, just to make it worthwhile. 

Selling costs, your own post mentioned eBay so you lose most of your profit there to start. Plus postage costs, allowing for items lost in the post , returns , scammers. Then any profit would be subject to tax and NI, and a business would need things like insurance . All of that before you even allow any costs for your time. 

Finally , people aren’t going to pay full price for something on eBay when they can buy direct, so you would need to offer a discount to get buyers, and there’s your profit gone. I’m sure there are safer ways to make money if you have a float of over £100,000 in the first place. 

Obviously if any business actually uses stamps still, and I suspect there are very few due to it costing less to buy postage online , then buying a small stock before the increase would be a good idea. I always bought lots if there was going to be a big increase but I rarely use stamps now, and to my dismay when I had to sort all mine out to send in for the swap out scheme I realised I had stock of over £1000 pounds worth, which I am unlikely to ever get round to using. 

subjecttocontract

Christmas is coming.......

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

Christmas is coming.......

If anyone still sends cards they will need a mortgage to use 1st class postage. Be a Scrooge like me, send very few cards, send them early and use 2nd class😀

It’s going to take me a long while to use £1000+ worth of stamps up especially as I don’t think I’ve used any now for a while. 

subjecttocontract

Well my original suggestion was made rather tongue in cheek. But there are large sections of the community that don't deal with day to day matters online. They don't have smart phones, don't have printers and do rely on the post.

soolin

subjecttocontract said:

Well my original suggestion was made rather tongue in cheek. But there are large sections of the community that don't deal with day to day matters online. They don't have smart phones, don't have printers and do rely on the post.

I realise this is all hypothetical but I am enjoying exploring the ideas . If someone isn’t online then how can a seller attract their attention to sell £100,000 worth of stamps? I live in a London borough with an aging population , none of our newsagents carry the old fashioned ‘cards in the window’ anymore, our local paper sells very little in print but offers online subscription (although they do take adverts) so it’s goi g to be rather a daunting task to sell any 

I agree entirely with the ‘not everyone is online’ comment though, my local PO has terrible queues up to 40 minutes sometimes and yet on several occasions I’ve seen people, often older ones, queue just to buy one stamp to send a card. They won’t buy from a shop and they won’t buy from the machines to the side of the counter as they do t trust it all. 

subjecttocontract

I've read the article but don't see any way to beat the price increase.......what is it ??????

molerat

subjecttocontract said:

I've read the article but don't see any way to beat the price increase.......what is it ??????

Buy your 1st & 2nd class stamps now, before the increase.  The same advice as with every other increase.

Rantband

subjecttocontract said:

I've read the article but don't see any way to beat the price increase.......what is it ??????

That's odd since you put the following on the other thread on Saturday

"Buy 100,000 1st class stamps now at £0.95 each. Sell them on EBay after April 3rd at £1.05 = £10,000 profit."

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

It's a shame the media sticks with this "price of a 1st class stamp" headline every year.

By Royal Mail's admission, and general common sense, letter volumes are declining so the price of a stamp isn't particularly relevant to most and the news articles are mostly pointless. 

Given parcel volumes are up and more people sell their stuff online these days it would be nice to see articles on the costs of parcels, info on the benefits of insurance and tracking with comparisons to the other couriers in the market.

Perhaps people might learn something rather than just moaning about something they rarely use being too expensive.

The MSE article does mention Large Letters but for example doesn't state if you buy stamps now to save a few pennies and use those to post eBay orders you won't have delivery confirmation on parcels for example.