Royal Mail, new size guide

[AJUK]

My mate Raj who runs our local post office told me it is in direct response to the increase in parcels from ebay and similar sales. It is logical but very contrived in order to squeeze as much money out of the punters as possible.

Size isn't the issue it is weight and we already pay by weight for everything over a standard letter. They have just rehashed it to get more money, theivin' gets.

 

[Tru]

Surely it would work in the opposite manner... economy of scale?

It seems to me Royal Mail were unprepared for the boom in internet shopping, they responded badly to the demand and began losing huge amounts of money, that's all pure conjecture of course.

 

[grahamjenks]

Royal Mail haven't helped themselves - last few years they've taken all the post off the railways and moved as much first class post as possible to air.

This was after they invested in new trains and massive network hubs to deal with the post. So now they've scrapped these - where are they going to find increased capcity (from increased internet shopping and such) and how do they pay for this now defunct infrastucture - in the end its the customer.

 

[Borris]

Ip dip, sky blue.

Who's the most outraged?

Not you.

Not because you're dirty,

Not because you're clean,

My mother says you're the fairy queen.



And, because SC is only a footstep away - Source.

 

[Werewolf]

Just thought I'd start a thread to vent at Royal Mail's decision to start charging significantly more for the same service.

I expect this is going to make eBay more complex, and expensive

I thought it was actually going to end up costing some (many?) people less as it's not purely by weight (which is a very flawed but simple way of charging).

In the real world that RM have to live in, it can cost a lot more to send a large package that weighs practically nothing, than to send a small heavy package.

All the new system does is balance out the size of the pacakage with the weight, thus coming closer to the true cost of delivery (a couple of dozen large boxes that weigh very little could take up most of a van, whilst not coming close to covering the cost, whilst a lot of small heavier items might be fine in the same van and make a profit).

Looking at the RM site, I can see that I would now be able to send a heavy DVD (one with a booklet) for about 65p, previously (from memory) it would have cost me a pound or more, as the standard "large letter" weight range is 100-250g for 65p.
Likewise it would cost me 90p to send a 500g "large letter" now, which I think is cheaper than it used to be for a lot of packages with that sort of weight (it would cover most books).

 

[Reppyboyo]

Rather miffed that it cost me £1 to send a jiffy bag with some cloth in it, which practically weighed nothing.

Usually cost me about 50p.

Oh well, time to up the postage costs on ebay.

 

[Tru]

Surely cloth can be folded?

 

[Borris]

I imagine that the next few weeks will be rife with copanies charging excessive postage, taking advantage of the confusion.

Although it's not like this was suddenly sprung on us out of the blue.

Surely cloth can be folded?

Tsk - Just like a man.

 

[S@njay]

Damm price increase.

I just about broke even selling books on ebay.

To send one book at 1.8kg cost £7 royal mail 1st class, or £5 on parcel force.

I need to increase my packaging fees, £4 wasnt enough

Oops, live and learn!

 

[Werewolf]

What books were they?
The encyclopeda Britannica?

Seriously though from what i've seen sending a lot of paperbacks should be cheaper now.

 

[4T5]

I just don't like change as it takes me ages to get used to new things, I am old.
I had all the prices in my head for posting most stuff i post. I could be pretty accurate when advertising but now i sound like some moody git trying to scam.


Mini Rant over.

 

[Chronos-X]

Am I the only person who can understand this? As a postal operator I'd much rather load a train up with 1000 items weighing a pound each than putting three massive helium balloons in it that would weigh nothing but use up resources all the same.

Size is the issue here.

 

[Belly]

If your gonna send an A4 envelope with a few pages inside it will be cheaper to fold the envelope in half to A5 size, staple it down and then send it!

Hey this is progress!

I don't think it will be possible to fold BT's Yellow Pages in half though!

 

[PinkPig]

I have a few good posty mates and they all say that ebay has increased their workload by such an amount that sometimes they don't get finished until after 3pm.

Since it's only been three days, saying that "someimtes they don't get finished until...." seems a bit premature. Any new system takes time and effort to get going.

As for charging more and the changes themselves, they do make a lot of sense - our postal prices (especially for light items) are actually among the cheapest in Europe, and it's fairly obvious that an awkwardly sized but very light item should cost more to deliver than something slightly heavier but small and compact.

 

[Glaucus]

yes it is more complicated, but also right for them to do it, since the monopoly has been taken away, it needs to run even more like a business now. People have to realise that bigger letters take up more room in a van, thus costing more.
Even though newspapers have been saying that size doesn't matter in the cost of transporting, of cause it freakin' does.

Size is much more important than weight, weight only becomes a problem if the lorry goes over its maximum carrying load.

 

[Tru]

Since it's only been three days, saying that "someimtes they don't get finished until...." seems a bit premature. Any new system takes time and effort to get going.

As for charging more and the changes themselves, they do make a lot of sense - our postal prices (especially for light items) are actually among the cheapest in Europe, and it's fairly obvious that an awkwardly sized but very light item should cost more to deliver than something slightly heavier but small and compact.

You misunderstood, since the Ebay explosion (5/6 years ago?) their workload has increased by a tremendous amount.

 

[Belly]

You misunderstood, since the Ebay explosion (5/6 years ago?) their workload has increased by a tremendous amount.

Their workload might have increased but what about the things that go missing, the recorded delivery items which just get left in one's doorway and their constant resistence to change. Has that increased too? I know what I believe

I'd rather have my letter box sealed and collect my items from a mail box. I wouldn't have to take my junk mail home, I'd just dump it there and then and the Post Office wouldn't be able to leave items in my door-way to be stolen by someone during the day!

(Name and Address withheld!!)

 

[Glaucus]

items really go missing, as for leaving signed goods at your door, that's down to the local postman, if you can have a word with them, they'll stop. Or just complaint to local post office.

 

[Werewolf]

Items will always go missing

The fact that most of the post gets through fine (and by most I mean something like 99.9%) is pretty good and you won't really find any postal or courier service doing much better, especially when you are dealing with tens of millions of items a day.

If anything the new postage system could decrease the number of damaged/lost packages as it will hopefully result in RM being able to get more staff in to deal with the larger packages when needed, at the moment they are not making any money on a lot of the light and large items (and are in fact subsiding it from the normal post).

 

[William]

Bah so much for me sending my huge empty boxes to the bloke I work next to then.