Yet another Royal Mail price increase

[qualitycardsandgifts]

Royal Mail has announced it will hike the price of first-class stamps by 30p due to "very real and urgent" financial challenges.

The increase, which will kick in from 7 October, will see the price of a first-class stamp rise to £1.65p, while second-class stamps will remain at 85p.

[the-nutwood-collection]

Selfishly, I don't care, because I seldom send items 1st Class letter post.

However, is this a harbinger of price rises on LL and parcels?  I do hope not.

[555njp]

I'm guessing they will see a huge drop off in first class mail then as it's now almost double the price of second!

Trouble is RM have the monopoly on letter/LL sizes so many online sellers have no choice.

[qualitycardsandgifts]

This plus the removal of second class deliveries on Saturdays could cause real issues

[padanpcparts]

They are tied with pricing on 2nd class LL due to the USO. Their hands aren't tied in the same way on 1st class post hence the massive discrepancy between the pricing.  If the government had not set the USO in law, then 2nd class LL would be going up in much the same way. 

[milly*fiory]

And another rumour I heard on the radio today was that Royal Mail may have to consider delivering second class post every other day to save money. lf that comes to fruition, it could cause even more confusion with eBay's estimated delivery dates.

[dch2112011]

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@the-nutwood-collection wrote:

Selfishly, I don't care, because I seldom send items 1st Class letter post.

However, is this a harbinger of price rises on LL and parcels?  I do hope not.

On the news tonight  it was reported -  it is the precursor to price increases for LL and parcel - happy days 

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[jbrusby]

You'd have thought if they want to raise more cash they'd make more by raising the 2nd Class price as presumably that's what more people use. This new trend for 6 monthly rises smacks of bad management, poor planning and desperation. So far no mention of LL prices but now have to brace for one every 6 months, and after the last change actually put the 250g price down it's highly likely the next hike will be harsh.

[qualitycardsandgifts]

So far this year, we have had a price rise in April, another in July and now this one.     If the price of parcels goes up as expected, I can see a lot of sellers ditching Royal Mail completely.  

[tribalgiftsuk]

1st class large letter is going up by 50p as well but i am glad they are not messing with the 2nd class (probably will next April).

[pzkpfwv1d]

This is becoming regular one the twice yearly increase in the cost of Royal Mail 1st class postage.  I work on a very low margin on items I sell and a 30p increase in the cost of stamps would actually equate to a virtual 50p increase in the cost of the item taking into account the fact that final selling fees are 13.8% plus V A T 

This is a non trivial exercise for a private seller even though the number of items listed is large 

The other alternative is to change the Royal Mail service from 1st class to second class but again this is a non trivial exercise as this would involve edditting every single listing to change from 1st Class to 2nd Class mail

Does anyone know of a quicker method for the second option 

[darth_baggins]

2nd class small parcel is going from £3.19 to £3.25. It only went up a few months ago from £2.99 to £3.19.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I'll be honest, I don't get all the complaints about RM price increases.

At the end of the day, there is no other real option for sending Letters/Large Letters.

So if the price goes up for you, it goes up for everyone else as well.

Yes, you will need to increase your price, unless your margins are large.

But generally speaking, those in the same sector as yourself, (ie, your competition), will be increasing their prices by the same/similar amount.

So yes, customers will see increased prices, but wherever they go, the prices will be similar.

[sea.n.van._60]

How did you make over 14000 listings as a private seller??

[pzkpfwv1d]

I am not complaining per see about the postage cost increase

My question is as follows: - 

Seeing as I have followed the ebay policy of offering free postage, the cost of postage is therefore worked into the cost of the item

I either change all the prices or change the postage method from 1st class to second class 

I know how to change prices as I have been here more than a decade and the last twice this has taken an entire month to do all the price changes 

What I want to know is whether it is possible top do a global change on the method of postage from 1st class to 2nd class or do I have to do each listing individually 

[the-nutwood-collection]

I agree that, if the majority of sellers raise their prices, the prices will be similar.

However, there is a price point at which the customer will walk away.

[pzkpfwv1d]

I have a large number of very small items which I have been selling for years know.  I bought them more than 2 decades ago I first experimented with selling pre-constructed decks when I stopped playing Magic the Gathering but they did not sell quickly or hardly sold at all.  Eventually I started to listed individual playsets or individual cards when the selling limit increased to allow the quantity and sales then started to expand and as they expanded Ebay kept increasing the selling limit 

As I have something like 100k cards in my collection, I need a larger quantity of listings but not a large value as most items I sell are between £3.65 and £5.65 depending on what they are, there rarity and the demand for them 

[555njp]

The problem is with letter and large letter where RM have the monopoly. Some of our small spare parts go out that way but these are relatively low cost meaning postage is by far the biggest chunk of the selling price.

As postage is increasing, demand is falling due to passing this cost on. I reflect this by offering huge discount on multi buy (35-50%) but the majority or buyers only need these items once for a repair so are not tempted to buy more.

As others have said, once the ceiling price is reached, buyers walk away and find another way (boot fair or shop) to attain parts, or just scrap their machine and replace it.

I think parcels are different as competition is keeping cost down and even RM tend to have one product that is good value. Currently I would say it's RM24 which is only slightly more than SP but also tracked, although Evri I believe are cheaper?

[555njp]

Yes, we are seeing the same problem, especially now that some shops and garden centres have decided to stock the more popular low cost (£3-£5) spares that were previously only available online. Realistically their retail price is maximum we can charge before sales drop off a cliff and they aren't paying an online selling fee or 40% of the cost in postage.

I think RM risk killing off online sales of anything under £5 soon which will reduce their throughput too.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

That's my point though, Royal Mail do have a monopoly on Letters/LL's.

There simply is no other option.

I used to sell a lot of carded items, which easily fit in letter/LL sizes.

Still do have a few hanging around still.  So I know this type of item well.

Whilst I understand that customers may well find another way of buying these things, the fact is, that unless they want to go out to the shops etc, there simply is no alternative!

So if they want the convenience, which is one of the biggest reasons for shopping online, they have no real alternatives.  Hell, I've even sold an item costing less than two pounds, with a £10 charge for postage in the past, because the customer wanted it the following morning.  And I really am talking about something that is easily available in your local tesco etc.

In actual fact, when I look at some items selling on the likes of Ebay that are low value, they are still most of the time, cheaper than you can buy in the shops.  

Parcels are another matter entirely.  Your right, there is a lot of competition in that market.

But don't believe for a minute, the face price for parcels that you see quoted on the various websites.

Most business won't be paying these rates at all, simply because they are sending bigger quantities.

And the more you send, the cheaper it gets.