Royal Mail Tariff Changes 2008

On Monday 7th April 2008 Royal Mail's price changes came into effect as well as the introduction of new discount structures. 1st Class Letter price increased to 36p for stamp and 34p for meter mail and the 2nd Class Letter price increased to 27p for stamp and 24p for meter.

Contact Courir for a full analysis of how the changes have effected your use of the post, to learn about ways in which you can alleviate the increases as well as how to take advantage of the new discounts that are now available.

Zonal Pricing Rejected by Postcomm

Postcomm rejected an application by Royal Mail to introduce Zonal Pricing from April 2008 based on two key areas: 1. they believed it would bring unreasonable changes to users of the services and, 2. they were not satisfied that Zonal Pricing would not lead to discriminatory pricing.

Although Zonal Pricing has been rejected in its current form it is possible Royal Mail will submit revised proposals at some stage in the near future as it is keen to bring in pricing that allows it to compete in the key city and town centres.

Postwatch condemns Royal Mail's poor performance

Postwatch - who describe themselves as 'the voice of the consumer in all postal matters' - have announced that Royal Mail has failed to achieved its quality of service targets for the first nine months of its 2007/2008 trading year. Against a target of 93% for First Class Postwatch say Royal Mail achieved only 83%.

Minimum Order Value (MOV)

Royal Mail introduced a minimum value on all sales orders (both paper posting cheque's and electronic) of £5 on 1st September 2007. It was expected that they would also (from 7th April 2008) increase this amount to £20 for paper posting cheque's only but this has been delayed for the moment. There will also be a handling fee of £1 per paper posting cheque regardless of value but this too has been temporarily put on hold.

You can post less than the minimum amounts, but your invoice will be topped-up to the minimum value. This means that if Royal Mail receive an OBA order at a value of say £1.10, it will be automatically topped-up to £5 resulting in an additional charge of £3.90.

So, how can you avoid this charge? There are several ways in which you can avoid paying the fee.

These include ensuring personnel connected to the completion of mailing documentation are well versed in the MOV requirements and have access to contingencies for when small volume mailings are needed?

Consider also the use of a Franking Machine, prepaid envelopes or Postage Stamps for short run mailings.

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