Royal Mail Parcels Price Increase

[Fazer]

they are always going to go up a bit, but it seems they added a new category now - medium parcels - and it's twice the price!
a medium parcel is over 8cm on the smallest side, ie everything that i want to post except maybe a dvd

and the signed for service has gone up from what was an extra 66p (i think), to an extra £1.10

[Fazer]

http://www.royalmail.com/prices-2013

[stickyfiddle]

they are always going to go up a bit, but it seems they added a new category now - medium parcels - and it's twice the price!
a medium parcel is over 8cm on the smallest side, ie everything that i want to post except maybe a dvd

and the signed for service has gone up from what was an extra 66p (i think), to an extra £1.10

"Recorded Signed For" is 100% a waste of money. There's no tracking, and they usually don't ask you to sign anyway. Just FYI. "Special Delivery" is what most people want when they ask for Recorded. Obviously that costs more..

[Sporky_McGuffin]

"Recorded Signed For" is 100% a waste of money. There's no tracking, and they usually don't ask you to sign anyway. Just FYI. "Special Delivery" is what most people want when they ask for Recorded. Obviously that costs more..

...and still goes missing without trace, finally appearing 3 months later but with no compensation.

[Fazer]

'signed for' does have tracking, and it gives an online conformation of delivery.
when selling from a paypal purchase its pretty mandatory and gives you seller protection, ie, it was delivered to the address.
fyi!

[Sporky_McGuffin]

Except that the tracking is spoofed, not real, and the posties often sign for recorded themselves, so it doesn't count as proof of delivery.

[guitarfishbay]

First class recorded only covers you to £46.

Special delivery covers you for up to £500 as standard. If you're sending anything valuable that is a fact well worth being aware of.

[mellowsun]

It's going to kill their business with ebay sellers overnight. Lots of discussions about this on the ebay forums.

MyHermes will do well out of this though.

[Ozric]

Honestly feel that the people operating Royal Mail want to do away with parcels full stop. It'll give them reason to lay off more staff because most businesses will use other services.
For my employers, it'll be cheaper to use FedEx for small parcels rather than Royal Mail. When we're busy we are knocking out 1100 to 1200 parcels a week. With these changes, that'll rise to maybe 1400.
That's a fair bit from just one business account to give away.

[ecc83]

Just spotted this thread and someone might be able to help?

Two weeks ago I shipped a small Line 6 amp to my son in France for his birthday. I used DHL at my local Homebase and it cost me £99.00, twice what I paid for the amp (s/h) but fork, it was his birthday and I can afford it atmo!

The high cost was because the amp would only fit the largest shipping carton but I sent it on a Thursday eve and he got it on the Monday, his birthday so cool!
Yesterday I went in with a laptop in a bag. The very helpful young lady was not there this time, just two surly yoofs. They did not "seem" to have a box even close to a bagged laptop's dimensions and I was not prepared to pay another ton just because of this.

So chaps, ideas for shippng a laptop, weight just under 5kgs to France (just inland) Value is about £200 but I am more interested in it getting there because I have spent a lot of time setting it up and putting programs on it. Cost of shipping is not really an issue but I don't want to get shafted!

Dave.