Royal Mail October 2023 Price Changes

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Scottman said:

And quietly,  stealthily,  the RM has reset all our post boxes to 0900 am last post - effectively giving themselves an extra day of incompetence.

Post boxes here used to be emptied between 3pm and 6pm, now they are emptied as the post is delivered earlier in the day so depending upon how close you are to the depot that's probably from around 9am onwards.

Perhaps different in cities but in a rural location the cost of both fuel and staff, not to mention the environmental impact, of collecting a handful of letters from post boxes a few hours later in the day is a bit crazy really. 

Obviously the postal workers have another job added to their round and are losing wages on the time saved but I can't imagine there is enough demand for things put in post boxes that must go quickly to justify the vast expense of that later collection. 

They do still have to pick up from the Post Office branches (they don't close in the afternoons) and a few businesses but must be saving hundreds of driving miles each week from a single small depot. 

As a side point, with them reducing office hours I'm surprised they haven't started installing lockers, they could pretty much do away with the counter system altogether with pick up and drop off via lockers. 

hermante

Woohoo, another price drop, 2nd class signed is now less than two 1st, small parcel now less than three 1st and special 100g now less than six 1st.

Stamps can be bought at half face value from dealers.

km1500

online smal parcel.price is 2.99, at post office 3.49

however if you buy 2x large letter stamps now and use them after October price rise they will cost 2.30 but be valued at 3.10

this means a post office small parcel will cost you 2.30 plus 39p ie 2.69 compared with 2.99 online

apologies if maths wrong !

RFW

soolin said:

Interestingly a number of Inpost items where labels are supplied by Vinted are now being fulfilled via RM48. The buyer pays approx £2.89 so Vinted must have negotiated an extremely good deal! 

I use "Seller fulfilled prime" via Amazon and buy their postage. I can get an RM24, fully tracked, for less than that, I think it's up to 750g small parcel size and then steps up. Amazon push their own post service for on and off Amazon goods but they still can't compete with RM for sub 1kg. If RM keep pushing up though there will come a time when they can and that may signal a big drop for Royal Mail.

RyanHello

Royal Mail increasing their postage again is just greed. Back in 2020 a 2nd class large letter stamp cost 0.88p. Next month it will be £1.55. How can they keep getting away with this!?

jon81uk

RyanHello said:

Royal Mail increasing their postage again is just greed. Back in 2020 a 2nd class large letter stamp cost 0.88p. Next month it will be £1.55. How can they keep getting away with this!?

Fewer and fewer letters are being sent. The government won't let them increase standard letter sizes by more than a certain amount, so it has to be large letters going up in price, its still cheaper than any other courier. Parcel prices don't go up as much because there is more competition, Royal Mail don't want to lose business to Evri. Also higher volumes of parcels being sent.

Struth72

1st class hasn't been 1st class in ages. Just use 2nd. Post takes the same length of time to get to it's destination these days so why bother giving RM more money!! They are literally pricing themselves out of existence and for many folks who are struggling to pay bills, it's a no brainer. Can't believe Martin is advising people to use 1st class stamps for Xmas card posting - just get organised and post out earlier with 2nd class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

soolin

There are a few threads on the eBay discussion boards about this price rise, one thread on the business board I found interesting as sellers were comparing the costs of their business accounts to buying labels direct from eBay for LLs. I’ve mentioned several times that I gave up my business account quite a while ago as the prices went up , they started to add surcharges for everything, including fuel charges, and there was no compensation if items didn’t arrive. The new surcharges, including a green tax has pushed more people over the edge. 

Add to this the issue with mail centres, mine for instance as I have moaned about on a different thread , now doesn’t have a facility to drop pre packed labelled business bags off in a separate area, it used to be really handy, they put cages out, you added your bags to the cage and left- no queues no waiting.. Now they have to queue at the normal counter along with everyone else if they arrive between 8-10 then the counter is open to all. This is pushing more businesses into switching to using eBay postage for LLs and I actually met someone in the mail centre queue on Monday who has switched, he had 2 huge sports bags filled with LLs , all pre labelled and he requested that each be scanned. He also said that switching to eBay labels has seen his INR rate drop considerably and for non eBay LLs he uses an RM system which is slightly more cumbersome but again allows him to download labels as a casual user , and again his INR rate has reduced. 

A number of people on different forums are stocking up on LL 2nd class stamps, trying to give themselves a few months breathing space at the old rates while they sell off stock, plus some are looking at selling items in bundles to make use of the standard parcel rate. Quite a few are looking at changing their business model or getting out entirely , the cost of 2nd class LL post on eBay with the FVFs added will be over £1.75 and for smaller cheaper items in a cost of living crisis that might be a step too far. 

I haven’t decided what to do yet. I’m partially retiring anyway so have already reduced the amount of items I’m buying for re sale and looking at whether it is feasible to bundle any of my LL items into parcel sized lots. 

gt94sss2

Royal Mail is increasing the cost of posting letters and parcels for businesses over Christmas and imposing a net zero “green surcharge”. 

In a move that risks increasing costs for shoppers, business account customers will be asked for an additional 5p or 10p “peak surcharge” for deliveries between November and January, on top of a 2p “green surcharge” to help fund “decarbonisation measures”.

From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/royal-mail-christmas-green-surcharges-letter-parcel/

martindow

gt94sss2 said:

Royal Mail is increasing the cost of posting letters and parcels for businesses over Christmas and imposing a net zero “green surcharge”. 

In a move that risks increasing costs for shoppers, business account customers will be asked for an additional 5p or 10p “peak surcharge” for deliveries between November and January, on top of a 2p “green surcharge” to help fund “decarbonisation measures”.

From https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/royal-mail-christmas-green-surcharges-letter-parcel/

This is from Ebay's site - the Telegraph is behind a paywall and in any case I'd prefer to read a more reliable source.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/Royal-Mail-price-changes-Green-Surcharge-amp-Peak-Surcharge/ba-p/7475414

It looks as if it only applies to business accounts and then only on certain services.