Royal Mail price hike

[andersonec]

Posted a refurbished Stanley No 6 to someone last week, cost £8, did the same again this morning, cost £12.92, and that was the cheapest. I was never any good at counting but even I can work out that is over a fifty percent price hike in one go. Now work this out;
Parcel force Express 48 with tracking.....£12.92
Second class.......................................£13.35

:?: :?: :?: :?: :?:

Andy

 

[carlb40]

The prices are getting ridiculous now. I will be listing my planes etc on ebay this week. A 3 day service from hermes is a fiver plus vat

 

[James-1986]

Hermes can afford to do it for £5 because they exploit their couriers, where as royal mail don't. I've worked for them out of desperation.

"Profits at Leeds-based Hermes Parcelnet - Britain's biggest home delivery firm - are up 37% this year to over £10million and boss Carole ­Woodhead has seen her pay soar by 270% to £722,353.

But there's no pay rise for Hermes' 7,500 "self-employed" delivery drivers who, as we revealed in July, can earn as little as £3 an hour and struggle to take a day off."

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation ... e-not.html

 

[whiskywill]

Parcel force Express 48 with tracking.....£12.92
Second class.......................................£13.35

That's a bit like my local Co-op shop. One jar of Dolmio pasta sauce for £2.09p. Two jars for £2.00p.

 

[Spindle]

Hi

Up here in the wilds of Scotland I can rely on Royal Mail knowing where my property is and leaving most packages in a reasonably secure location if I'm not in. If a package needs a signature it is left at their local depot and a card put through my door - collection the next day is a 14 mile round trip.

Other couriers frequently:
Have difficulty finding me and the package gets returned to sender.
Find me out and leave a card - collection then involves a 70 mile round trip.

I will happily pay Royal Mail rates for the above reasons, I only wish that on line suppliers would give me the option.

Regards Mick

 

[nev]

parcel2go - lists the majors e.g. pick up and delivery up to 30kg for a tenner with tnt

 

[andersonec]

Hi

Up here in the wilds of Scotland I can rely on Royal Mail knowing where my property is and leaving most packages in a reasonably secure location if I'm not in. If a package needs a signature it is left at their local depot and a card put through my door - collection the next day is a 14 mile round trip.

Other couriers frequently:
Have difficulty finding me and the package gets returned to sender.
Find me out and leave a card - collection then involves a 70 mile round trip.

I will happily pay Royal Mail rates for the above reasons, I only wish that on line suppliers would give me the option.

Regards Mick

Mick, before you buy why not contact the supplier, explain the situation and ask if they will send stuff with RM? if not then say you will try somewhere else.

Andy

 

[MickCheese]

My wife runs a postal business. She charges £8.00 per order and often sends her parcels at a loss once you add the box, packing and her things need to be kept warm so she adds a heat pack in cold weather.

A big problem.

Mick

 

[Spindle]

Hi Andy

That's what I try to do but unfortunately it's not always possible. My last expensive delivery from Amazon was lost by a carrier with whom we've had issues in the past, when I discussed this with Amazon they informed me they were unable to select a courier, it was done automatically by their software!

Regards Mick

 

[Jacob]

Hermes can afford to do it for £5 because they exploit their couriers, where as royal mail don't. I've worked for them out of desperation.

"Profits at Leeds-based Hermes Parcelnet - Britain's biggest home delivery firm - are up 37% this year to over £10million and boss Carole ­Woodhead has seen her pay soar by 270% to £722,353.

But there's no pay rise for Hermes' 7,500 "self-employed" delivery drivers who, as we revealed in July, can earn as little as £3 an hour and struggle to take a day off."

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigation ... e-not.html

It's the classic outcome of privatisation.
Firms cherry pick the most profitable bits and pay their staff as little as possible. We subsidise them with benefits for their low paid employers. Their bosses pay themselves huge bonuses until they go bankrupt.
In the meantime the Royal Mail has to provide the same universal service as before (expensive) but gives every appearance of being too expensive and less efficient. Lo and behold this is an argument for further privatisation.
They are doing the same with education and health - farm out the profitable bits, run down the rest and sell them off.

Interestingly the penny post was brought in 173 years ago precisely because of the hopeless inefficiency of multiple private carriers and postal services.* It's worked very well until now - or rather, until Thatcher and the new loony right economic agendas.

*similarly British Rail et al.

 

[RogerS]

Its one of the great things about Axminster. If you have a problem with a carrier and let them know then they won't use that carrier again for you. Even to the point of when you ask for something guaranteed next day they will call you to explain the other carriers can't do it and so will you accept the 'dodgy' carrier.

Now that's what I call customer service!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Jacob - I thought politics were a no no?

 

[RogerS]

Jacob - I thought politics were a no no?

Do what I do, mate, and stick him on Ignore...

 

[inkyblue]

Tell me about it! Just sold some cameras and a load of old tools on ebay (to fund the purchase of new tools ). Sold a little box of engineering bits for £6 odd, had the p&p at 5.95, actually cost £13.50.....SECOND CLASS!! So it actually cost me £2 odd, and I've already had the guy on moaning about where his stuff is. This morning my ebay bill is in for get this £158!! I lost out a few quid on every item (Over 20) so I'll be advertising some tools on here I think in the next few days. Rather let someone on here benefit from lower prices, than make some greedy corporates rich!

 

[Gary Morris]

could the price be a mistake on the gpo's end?

 

[RogerP]

Tell me about it! Just sold some cameras and a load of old tools on ebay (to fund the purchase of new tools ). Sold a little box of engineering bits for £6 odd, had the p&p at 5.95, actually cost £13.50.....SECOND CLASS!! So it actually cost me £2 odd, and I've already had the guy on moaning about where his stuff is. This morning my ebay bill is in for get this £158!! I lost out a few quid on every item (Over 20) so I'll be advertising some tools on here I think in the next few days. Rather let someone on here benefit from lower prices, than make some greedy corporates rich!

It's best to weigh your packed item and find the cost of postage here http://www.royalmail.com/price-finder before listing on eBay. Sounds to me like your losses were caused by guessing the cost of postage.

eBay charge 10% up to a maximum of £75 then PayPal charge a further 3.4% +20p - so I round up and call it 15% overall. This is less than any local auction house and with eBay you can have a worldwide audience. Your £158 bill must represent a lot of sales - at a guess over £1500 worth.

 

[inkyblue]

Problem was Roger, that I used last years price guide, and the massive hike happened on April 2nd, the very day I went to post them off! Thanks for the link.