Just seen jaw dropping Royal Mail price increases for large letters😯

[runninginlane4]

I'm sure this has been brought up before and I apologise for any repetition but I just could not believe the huge price increases for large letters. 

As someone that mostly uses 2nd class large letter 100g and 250g services I've seen two large price increases this year :-

A less than 100g 2nd class large letter will have risen from £1.05 to £1.55 this year. That's a 47.6% increase.

A less than 250g 2nd class large letter will have risen from £1.65 to £2.40 this year. That's a 45.5% increase.

Less than 500g has thankfully only increased 25.6%, £2.15 to £2.70. 

Their huge increases drive business away and reduces number of letters posted and this is then used as justification for the next price increase which drives further business away etc. So many industries have a regulator these days but the RM seem to be able to do what ever they want without or with little regulation. 

I've done my best not to rant too much but, like many others, I'm a little miffed at these rises. 😡🥺😖

[purveyor_of_tat]

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@runninginlane4 wrote:

....Their huge increases drive business away....

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Drive them to where?

[four_mid_able]

There was a post the other day about 1 courier charging an extra 55p to anything going into London (i'm guessing it could mean out as well) because of ULEZ.

See :- https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Evri-charging-55p-extra-for-ULEZ/m-p/7483403

It may mean tha other couriers will follow suit.

[drgwalker]

I forked out £475 today buying stamps that hopefully should see me good for a year or so. I strongly suggest others buy the 1st class and large letter booklets now to alleviate the increases (for now).

Can't really blame Royal Mail as they've been losing money for years and are constantly running at a loss.

[runninginlane4]

I believe they are just more selective in what is posted. The number of letters delivered by RM has fallen over 30% in the last 6 years.

[runninginlane4]

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@drgwalker wrote:

Can't really blame Royal Mail as they've been losing money for years and are constantly running at a loss.

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It may be that the letter delivery side is not profitable but until their last set of results RM as a whole was profitable. Losses were blamed on the strikes.

[twfan11]

That doesn't sound right. I posted a large letter under 100g today for £1.15. 

[*devils.advocate*]

As of today, yes, it's £1.15.

There was a price rise in April this year from £1,05 to £1.15.

There is to be another price rise from 02 October.

From that date, large letter under 100g will be £1.55

[runninginlane4]

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@twfan11 wrote:

That doesn't sound right. I posted a large letter under 100g today for £1.15. 

In April it rose from £1.05 to £1.15. Next Monday it will rise from £1.15 to £1.55. So this year it will have risen from £1.05 to £1.55, a 50p increase. As a percentage of the original price that's 47.6%

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[kempseykate]

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@four_mid_able wrote:

There was a post the other day about 1 courier charging an extra 55p to anything going into London (i'm guessing it could mean out as well) because of ULEZ.

See :- https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Evri-charging-55p-extra-for-ULEZ/m-p/7483403

It may mean tha other couriers will follow suit.

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To be fair we don't even know if this courier is charging extra yet - there is nothing on their website and I have just tried one of the postcodes on the list and it came up at the normal price.

[tea_and_tortoises]

I know this is not something everybody can do but I use about 10 LL second class stamps a week for my selling account so it was worth it for me to do.

If you can afford it I would suggest you stock up on LL stamps.

Every 100 you buy will be £40 dearer after 1st October.

If you buy 2 books of 100 you will save £80.  For me buying a couple of books now has meant I won't have to put my prices up until Spring next year.

[runninginlane4]

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@tea_and_tortoises wrote:

If you buy 2 books of 100 you will save £80.  For me buying a couple of books now has meant I won't have to put my prices up until Spring next year.

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Yes, I intend to buy 200-300 today. I've still got about 30 left that I bought at £1.05 earlier this year.

[football.for.fun]

Hello, you might like to look at Royal Mail's operating profit figures from the past 10 years, they haven't been losing money for years, not by a long-shot. Yes in 2023 they will lose a lot of money but this is due to massive restructing within the company which is a one-off. All the best

[a45heaven]

Yes it is quite a large increase they are inflicting for delivering our mail -

Maybe ebay will be taking a reduced amount of postage fees from us as a sympathy gesture, as they do nothing for those postage fees.

[myretrostore-uk]

It will be interesting to see how this impacts volume for sellers over the next few weeks with the price increases. 

[a45heaven]

yes - its a shame that ebay picked last month to effectively reduced combined shipping with the 4 days and a strike, but thats also got ebay more postage fees - just buyers and sellers who suffer.

[gofastergames]

I forked out £537 and purchased 500 large letter 2nd class stamps, if I was doing a little better financially I would have bought 1000

[epizo369]

They're also probably increasing prices to cover costs for the ULEZ, clean air zones and LTNs, etc.

Problem is most customers don't realise the prices have increased and sales will slow down due to refusal to pay for higher shipping costs.

[diana_stroud]

I did buy 1,000 so that will save £400 worth of price rises, although the huge increases on the 100-250g price is wiping that out pretty quickly. I spent over £15k on postage in the last financial year, god knows what it will be at the end of this one.

[*knight-rider*]

`Can't really blame Royal Mail as they've been losing money for years and are constantly running at a loss.`

Over the last week or so, i`ve been reading these threads and a thought cross my mind last night.

The nearest next town to me is around 4-5 miles away from where i live and a few months ago, i had to go there for a blood test. I had to use a taxi, because i stopped driving a few years ago and that 10 mile round trip cost me £15, even if i was to get a taxi into town, which is 1/2 mile away, it would cost me £3.50 and a bus ride is over £2.

Something else that staggers me, as a non drinker, is what people spend on booze. A bottle of spirits is what, £20 a bottle or more. The two examples above, never seem to make anyone raise an eyebrow, but here we have a large letter, collected from a post office in a van, driven to a sorting office, driven god knows how many more miles to another sorting office at the other end of the country, put in another van, taken to it`s address by someone and delivered, all for the sum of £2.50(ish)!!

Like i said, i can`t get a bus 1/2 mile into town for that, so whilst i get the `profit margins` arguement etc, when you look at the bigger picture, £2.50 to take a large letter from one end of the country to the other and deliver it, i think is a blinking bargain 🙂