Royal Mail to start charging for thermal labels

[darth_baggins]

I just got an email from RM. From January 19th thermal labels will be £4.69 + VAT each. That's a huge price increase from free.

[darth_baggins]

Also a 3% rise in 'fuel' surcharge from 8% to 11% from January 5th.

[tick-tech]

I was always surprised they kept them free for as long as they did. So many sellers on eBay were selling them on for a profit, which is a great business if you get all of your stock for free! My guess is RM have introduced the charge to stop people doing that.

£4.69 + VAT still seems to be (just) cheaper than you can get them elsewhere, so I guess this isn't much above their cost price. Still, it's another stealth tax of about 1p per parcel for us.

Needless to say, I've already ordered 5 more free rolls to keep us going for a while! 🙂

[lamppostelectrical]

And now the website isn't working properly and am unable to order free labels......

[darth_baggins]

Was very slow for me. Probably crashed by everyone trying to get their orders in.

[nutrafituk]

And they are changing their fleet to electric...

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

@nutrafituk 🙄 which will cost a lot more to run thanks to the new EV duty and more wear & tear on the roads because these vehicles are heavier.

[nutrafituk]

When it is introduced eventually while being excluded from congestion fees, along with incentives for purchases and eco-friendly concept. In the meantime the average fuel price has actually dropped year-to-year. Not to mention the 'green surcharge'... Agree on the weight, though.

[pegr-834437]

Is there a fair usage limit of how many times you can order within a month? I can see they have reduced it to only 5 rolls a day but I can see people just ordering 5 a day every day until they charge.

[padanpcparts]

Exactly what people should be doing. Business customers are already getting charged more on many parcels than personal ones and dont get me started on the worse customer services and atrocious claim process. I think I will just close my account completely once they start charging. Royal mail over the last 2 years have gone from getting approximately £18k a year to £2k a year from me due to their various changes. I can't be the only one...

Royal Mail now want to charge you more for having their parcels prepared for them then they do having a member of staff at the Post Office/Sorting Office wasting their time printing them out for you. It's crazy. 

[vintage-emporium-jedburgh]

One roll of 500 will last us a lifetime at  recent rate of sales

[pegr-834437]

I think i will order 20/25 and it will last me a couple years. 

Simple delivery is looking even better now,  like you I've gone from spending £14k a year to around £3k thanks to authentication using DPD but the increases and them wanting us to pay for labels is a joke now. 

[genuineproductsuk]

We should have been grateful to Royal Mail for providing those labels and other materials for free for so long.

People simply took advantage of that offer and were reselling these labels 😞 Shame Really!

It is a right decision by Royal Mail, they are still one of the best and price competitive companies out there 

[genuineproductsuk]

Perhaps, you should start your own Royal Mail business...

[genuineproductsuk]

We spend nearly £20k in postage with Royal Mail - they are still the best and most cost effective company. We tried dealing with DPD, UPS and others...

[pegr-834437]

They are good, but with the constant increase in prices, surcharges and basic tracking it becomes a serious question as to do you stick or twist and go to a more 'premium' service like DPD who are more expensive but not drastically and the tracking alone makes Royal Mail look like its stuck in 1990's. This move though is standard of large companies, instead of dealing with those taking the mick they will punish all accounts and charge for labels. It seems short sighted to me.

[padanpcparts]

Still the best? Are you sure you are dealing with RM? They have been atrocious since the takeover. 

[paul*tribesandvibes*]

I'm just going round and round the mail supplies part of the OBA - you cant order anything. Every time I press the 'order online supplies' link, I keep getting a log in page. Crazy.