Changes to Second Class and Economy Delivery Speeds

[qualitycardsandgifts]

I have a Royal Mail business account and received this email yesterday.     I hope eBay will be adjusting their delivery estimates accordingly. I have a Royal Mail business account and received this email yesterday. I hope eBay will be adjusting their delivery estimates.

[amldesign]

re: business post changes

From what i understand,

if you use PPI labels via Royal mail OBA that is classed as business post, 

so will only deliver mon, wed and friday

you need to update your PPI labels to the newer version 

personally i think they need to change the 2nd class delivery time to 3/4 working days anyway, as it is unreliable and will help sellers using business post mail.

what i do not understand is if you use stamps, that's not affected, its as if they are penalising business accounts as they get it slightly cheaper.

most of my post is letters and the odd large letter, so i may just use stamps in the future

PPI, grey bags and oba  and dropping off at post office is a bit of a pain anyway, when you have local letter boxes / parcel boxes

i have emailed oba for an exact answer

andy

[santlache_sales]

A highly dubious policy which has taken hundreds of pounds of us in rip off fees....a stealth fee introduced with the usual eBay lies and a total distortion of the truth.

So yes, I am still very hacked off about it as I don't like someone shafting me, and that is what eBay are doing to everyone when they steal 10% of our P&P fees.

It was also when I lost any respect I ever had for eBay as a company.

[santlache_sales]

£2.70 delivery in 2–3 days.

Which is Royal Mail Tracked 48 - and that service actually costs £2-80 now and eBay haven't updated Royal Mail's latest price increases from TWO MONTHS ago, and again NOTHING is allowed for packaging, or the 10% eBay steal in fees.

[sml192]

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@santlache_sales wrote:

£2.70 delivery in 2–3 days.

Which is Royal Mail Tracked 48 - and that service actually costs £2-80 now and eBay haven't updated Royal Mail's latest price increases from TWO MONTHS ago, and again NOTHING is allowed for packaging, or the 10% eBay steal in fees.

£2.80 is the over the counter price.  It is still £2.70 when purchased online. 

[superchallenge]

A Royal Mail Tracked 48 large letter purchased via eBay is £2.70. Or at least it was when I bought one last night.

If you're paying for postage over the counter, then I don't know what to tell you.

[moldosgifts]

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@therenewalworkshopltd wrote:

Parcel services are not effected by this.  So RM24/48 etc is as normal.

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Just checking you do know it is also a large letter service not just a parcel service.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Not entirely sure what you mean tbh?

RM24/48 LL is classed as a parcel service.

Standard LL is a letter service.  ie 1st & 2nd class.

The above has been confirmed via RM support.

[moldosgifts]

Your funny i have used rm48 for years i mostly post LL not parcels.

It is a service that has both on it you pay much less for LL over parcels.

So they are a separate service not the same.

Only thing they share is the same online code .

[darth_baggins]

It's just the name of the service. Forget whether you're sending LL or parcels. The name of the product is RM48 which is called a parcel service, regardless of what you send.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Strangely enough, I've used them for years as well.

Not entirely sure what is funny about what I wrote, as has been confirmed by darth_baggins!

RM24/48 whether parcel or Large letter are both classed as a parcels by Royal Mail.

If you don't believe me, ask them yourself!

[habbymart]

The problem here in my view is that in this day and age, we still have a class system openly on display.  First class and second class whether from Trains to letter delivery is outdated.  There should just be one service, a first class or premium delivery or train service.  I aint no second class citizen.  If they were to do away with second class and create a level playing field, their KPI's would either reveal how poor their services is/was but also possibly pave the way for an improved overall WORLD CLASS service

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Announced this morning

“ Royal Mail can deliver second class letters on every other weekday and not on Saturdays.”

come on eBay, you have to amend your delivery forecasts.   Based on Royal Mails 2-3 working days forecast means that an item posted second class on Monday will now not arrive until Friday / Monday at the earliest.

First class letter price has doubled in price since 2022 and is now £1.70.

[susapric-68]

Yeah just seen it, comes in from the 28th July. Going by what has been said they will be delivered Mon,Wed and Fri. Lets hope as this is to save money we will stop seeing the large price increases each time

[jlovie]

Does Letters include Large Letters, or is LL classed as parcels?

I've noticed the online price guide keeps getting updated. The categories I use haven't changed - does anyone know what keeps getting changed?

There's a new revision issued today.

Our online price guide (valid from 10 July 2025)

[susapric-68]

LL comes under letters

[susapric-68]

Not really sure how the new way is going to work. Unless RM are planning to lose more mail than normal the same amount will be sent each week and the postie still has to walk the route each day because of 1st class post daily, just every other day they will have a heavier bag to carry because of the 2nd class they didn't deliver the day before. They save time on sorting 2nd class every other day but that is going to end up with a huge back log of post. Get ready for INR cases to go right up

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I don't know, but if your tracked 48 LL, then they are definitely classed as parcels.

But from what I understand RM classes RM48 LL as parcels as well.  But until they have everything clarified, we just won't know.

[custom-giftsuk]

The issue isnt delivering 2nd class post every other day, its delivering post in total every second day. 

We only get mail (1st, 2nd and parcels - unless 1st class tracked or guaranteed ) every 2nd day and nothing on weekends and we're in a big city. Posties already know this and this is just giving the green light to a practice already  well under way 

[susapric-68]

Never heard that. Go to a PO and you will see 3 bags. 1st class letter/LL, 2nd class letter/LL and parcels. 24/48 just go in the 1st/2nd class bags unless it's a parcel

[darth_baggins]

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@susapric-68 wrote:

Yeah just seen it, comes in from the 28th July. Going by what has been said they will be delivered Mon,Wed and Fri. Lets hope as this is to save money we will stop seeing the large price increases each time

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According to the BBC (RM announcement was as clear as mud) it's Monday/Wednesday/Friday one week then Tuesday/Thursday, alternating each week.