1st class stamps

[Toky]

........are soon to cost 60p!!!! That's daylight robbery and I'm afraid, it's the slippery slope down for the Royal Mail. I won't tell you how many Christmas cards I usually send, but I can state categorically, there will be none getting sent this year, as I could not justify the costs now. Jacqui Lawson's ecards will get sent instead!. Not ideal, but hey ho!( or should that be ho ho ho?)

[Anne]

I agree Rosemary.
From my perspective it's worse.  My hand made cards are heavy therefor cost more to send anyway.  Guess who
will no doubt sell less now:(

[Toky]

Funnily enough Anne, I had been talking to someone today who also makes acrds and she said the same. Such a pity, but I guess we'll all get used to getting handed a card and think nothing about it.

[stoop]

Stop sending cards and give the money to charity instead. Some people will lose out but others will gain  

[Scunner]

It could well be that the Post Office has signed what may ultimately be their death warrant - there are simply too many alternatives to writing a letter these days (sadly I think) and if it wasn't for bills, the bank (and that is on the way out with internet banking) and junk mail, I don't see what else there will be for them to deliver in a year or two's time. I also agree about Christmas - who is going to spend £6 sending 10 Christmas cards, let alone £60 for 100?

It was a big shock to me today, I would have thought a 1st class stamp was about 26p []

[karaokemark]

The problems for Royal Mail got much worse when private companies were allowed to cherry pick the profitable parts of the business, leaving RM with a pricing policy to deliver a letter the next day from one end of the country to the other, which meant they were loosing approx 4p for every first class letter they delivered. (These were the approx figures when I left the business)
Private companies were also allowed downstream access to our delivery service, meaning they could collect 1000s of letters leaflets etc. from a company bring them to our mail centre where we had to deliver them for a few pennies.
Now the Royal Mail is on the verge of being privatised it has to stand on it's own two feet and make a profit, I agree people will not send as many letters so there will be many more job losses, leaving a profitable company renamed Deutsche Post.

[Toky]

When the Christmas stamps come out in early November, I usually buy 10-12 everytime I am near P.O. so that it's not such a blow buying them all at once. Even so, I won't do it next year. Can forsee the oncoming of front doors without letterboxes being sold soon. We'll soon have no need for them. My neighbour is a postman and has 3 small kids. He's naturally a worried man with news of the rise.

[Jacqui Harvey]

Buy your books of 2nd Class Stamps now before the price hike.  As long as the stamps just say 2nd Class they are valid no matter how much the price goes up.  So if you buy them now and put them away for Christmas you will save a lot of money.  The price does not go up until the end of April, so you could start and buy 10 stamps per week.  Also, at the moment Superdrug have books of 1st Class stamps with 5% off. This offer is on until 12th April.
As someone with an internet business I always look for offers on stamps and recently bought 10 6x1st books of stamps in Makro at a good reduction.

[philrose]

quote:Originally posted by Toky

........are soon to cost 60p!!!! That's daylight robbery and I'm afraid, it's the slippery slope down for the Royal Mail. I won't tell you how many Christmas cards I usually send, but I can state categorically, there will be none getting sent this year, as I could not justify the costs now. Jacqui Lawson's ecards will get sent instead!. Not ideal, but hey ho!( or should that be ho ho ho?)

Mind you if you think I'd take your leter from say London all the way to Glasgow for 60p - you got another thing coming!:D

[Scunner]

True, but I'd probably take 10,000 of them from London to Glasgow for £6,000