Price of Stamps!

[Coops]

The Mail Regulator has lifted some controls from the Royal Mail meaning the price of stamps will go up from 30th April.

1st class will be 60p - c30% increase from 46p

2nd class will be 50p - c38% increase from 36p

IF this price increase leads to increased revenues which will result in greater investment in the service/infrastructure with the final goal being an improved and more reliable/resilient service then excellent, otherwise the service is going to collapse pretty quickly.

It will certainly enable other operators to come in and complete the final mile delivery - with TNT NV offloading TNT Express (to UPS last week) it leaves the parent company (KPN Post) free to concentrate on the domestic mail

[jrw]

Seriously? 60p?!

And they can't even deliver it to the correct address before sunset.....Shocking.

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

Minimum wage goes up, fuel prices go up. What does everyone expect?

I've pretty much used Royal Mail all my life. What are the other domestic options?

[leckman]

We do not get our mail until half past one in the afternoon,hardly a first class service.

[CFB]

It's to make royal mail more attractive to private sector purchasers IF they are privatised in 2013/14

[Paul007]

We use a company at work with the initials NTT (or a similar order) and the rules apply -

You shall only use window envelopes

You shall display a postcode or we will reject it

Your post will be ready for 2.30pm (so what about late or urgent post ?)

You addresses will not be hand written

and if you miss our collection, use RM - but you have to use First Class.

Guess what. Royal Mail post gets there first and works out cheaper overall. If only the CTax payers knew...

[VWD]

What RM might look at is charging to return junk mail to the sender . 60p will not deter the likes of Virgin & BT sending out tree loads of the stuff .

[cheezemonkhai]

The Mail Regulator has lifted some controls from the Royal Mail meaning the price of stamps will go up from 30th April.

1st class will be 60p - c30% increase from 46p

2nd class will be 50p - c38% increase from 36p

IF this price increase leads to increased revenues which will result in greater investment in the service/infrastructure with the final goal being an improved and more reliable/resilient service then excellent, otherwise the service is going to collapse pretty quickly.

It will certainly enable other operators to come in and complete the final mile delivery - with TNT NV offloading TNT Express (to UPS last week) it leaves the parent company (KPN Post) free to concentrate on the domestic mail

I don't think that's at all expensive for getting a letter anywhere in the UK.

Go and try and get your letter posted from some rural town to another rural town at the other end of the country and see how much a courier wants to do that.

[phil555]

Agree with the above. Don't think it's to bad considering what is involved.

Makes me laugh when I miss a parcel from where I live though, it's taken to a sorting office 2 miles away. I live in a village and my local Post Office is two doors up...........

[VWD]

Agree with the above. Don't think it's to bad considering what is involved.

Makes me laugh when I miss a parcel from where I live though, it's taken to a sorting office 2 miles away. I live in a village and my local Post Office is two doors up...........

I'm now classified as a BT pensioner. But when working .In my town( when we all worked for the GPO) we had the Mail section on the ground floor. THEN the manual exchange occupied the first floor, with the engineers next door. In the oit of town garage ,we had mechanics who serviced both the Postal and engineering fleet. One big happy family.

[hertsnminds]

So how will this effect the 3.4% inflation rate?

[gallego1968]

I buy stamps all the time but have never known how much they cost as i buy a book at a time while buying other stuff.

[gadgetman]

So less people use RM, so the restructuring needs to accelerate and strikes happen again just before it's sold.

How much waste and out dated (slow) practices are holding Royal Mail back making this rise needed?

['daiking']

So how will this effect the 3.4% inflation rate?

I don't know about the effect of the stamps, probably not a lot but Faisal Islam tweeted earlier today that the VAT changes and duty increase would add 0.4% to that figure.

[VWD]

Agree with the above. Don't think it's to bad considering what is involved.

Makes me laugh when I miss a parcel from where I live though, it's taken to a sorting office 2 miles away. I live in a village and my local Post Office is two doors up...........

More of a laugh - read on .My late dad was a postie first ,and then promoted to postal officer. This was in the Highlands. In his day , if he posted a letter to a local adress, it was sorted locally and then delivered. Next came a change. All posted mail was bagged and taken to the PHQ, in this case Perth .100 miles of highlnd road ,there , and same back . To be sorted in the local office .

Up till his last days ,he was friendly with all the staff in the office. He'd pop in for a chat ,when in town . He mentioned that one of his old colleagues used to do a mail run to a village approx 50 miles away. Due to postal schedules , the time allowance meant that keeping to the speed limit was not an option.

Now, I know that the posty gets paid ( or used to ) on delivery of items of junk mail( not a fortune, but it helps on the wage packet) so I 've been brought up in the faith of not stopping these ,as it might hurt the posty . I f RM can decide to make money off them .I just mark them up as "UNWANTED JUNK,DELIVERED BY RM-RTS" , and stick them back in a post box . My favourite is the credit card /insurance junk. I open the origonal, and stick all the content back into the provided envelope. Makes my day, as not only do they have to pay the return postage, but they've got to employ someone to open the envelope .

Another favourite is if you get both on same day. Remove any personal info,and return each others junk in the others envelope( i.e senf insurance junk back to credit card co ,and vice versa) .

Not only makes me feel good, but it's less junk for our council to recycle ,and less cost to us ,theCT payer .

[FellyMagic]

I had to go to the local Post Office today to post off a few parcels, (our post office is inside the local McColls news/kwikeemart, like most around here), and she says how people don't really send letters any more much, due to modern technology, such as e-mail, and text etc. Even most utilities offer a paperless online billing system now. I've also heard a cetain delivery company is doing a tie up with Tesco! Is there anything this company wont do to get control of everything?

Edited 31 March, 2012 by FellyMagic

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

Is there anything this company wont do to get control of everything?

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlfSi0D7KESk&v=lfSi0D7KESk&gl=GB

Observe!

[FellyMagic]

Vlad, linky not working

[Jim H]

I've already prepared

This seems like a good investment

[VladSoilerOfCarpets]

Vlad, linky not working

Search 'Time Trumpet Tesco' on YouTube and watch the 2-minute long one.

[Padrino]

I don't mind even higher price IF and only IF they reinstal the service that once was. As many have mentioned above first class is more like few days than the next morning before 9AM.

[moley]

I use Royal Mail quite a bit to post small parts and invoices to customers and I find the service very good.

Example: A customer phoned me at 8 O'clock one saturday morning asking for a part that fitted into a medium size jiffy bag. I dropped it in the local post office for first class postage at 9 O'clock, the customer phoned me at 10 O'clock on Monday to say he had recieved it. The Postage was from Surrey to West Yorkshire.

Anyone moaning about 60p for a posting a letter should put 60 pence worth of fuel in their car and see how far they get with it.

Most of my business correspondence is by email, so the amount of postage is reduced. Parcels by Royal mail is not a bad price either, for larger parcels I use UPS through interparcel.

[XLBaconDoubleCheese]

I don't use letters very much, as said email and other modern methods are quicker and cheaper. When I have used it though it's been spot on, iv got no issues with paying 60p to get a letter somewhere in a day or two.

Slightly off subject, just had two parcels delivered by royal mail, both sent 48hour service both arrived less than 24hours after they were sent!

[lfc958swmbo]

For any of you who send letters on a regular basis here is how to save a little money on your postage. Stamps marked first class can be purchased now at 46p and used when the postage goes up to 60p. Saving you 14p per letter. On top of this if you purchase from superdrug a book of 12 first class will only cost you £5.24 per book = 43.66p per letter. I believe they will let you buy up to 6 books per transaction.

[cheezemonkhai]

On the whole PO thing, can somebody tell me why we are nationalising the PO debts and privatising the profits that they make?

Seems a bit daft to take the hit and sell the bit that makes money. Why not say take it with the debt or we'll keep the profits?