The Framers Forum

Have you deliberately bought a quantity of postage stamps recently in order to save money because of the record price hike at the end of April?"

Sheet of 100 2nd class costs £36
After May 1st same sheet... £50

Maybe all framers should collude and agree a 38% price hike from May 1st

It still costs less than 13 pence to post a letter from Malaysia to the UK

I will be in Malaysia in late Nov. - anyone wanting me to post all their Christmas cards, maybe we can do a deal ?

Seriously - there must be a business opportunity here for a bright entrepreneur to handle mail that doesn't need to arrive quickly. You only need 1000 letters and it will cover the cost of your airfare.

Already done it Keith. Purchased the projected number of stamps required for business until the end of next financial year (April 13), plus xmas card stamps. How sad is that, but only a monopoly supplier could jack up their prices by 38% and survive. It wouldn't be so bad if the service was good.

Shame I can't do it with the internet postage (which is by far the bigger spend) but I keep watching the parcel prices versus couriers.

I might buy a few but we don't post a great deal anymore.

Mail shots are not cost effective so we try and use social media and selective leaflet drops.

Suppliers can be paid by BACS and I send out and receive invoices as email attachments in pdf format.

All of these factors weigh against Royal Mail and I do have sympathy towards them. Despite what people say I believe they offer a great service and they are committed to delivering to every single UK address.

We needed to get stamps this week anyway so will probably double up what we normally get, but we are like J2M - bills are paid online and invoices tend to be received by email so we don't post much anyway.

Thats a brilliant idea Keith! How long does a letter take to arrive from Maylasia?

This could be the end of Royal Mail and that might be the intention behind this massive 38 percent increase!

In future I will avoid using Royal Mail. I suspect many others will do the same.

Not your average framer wrote
This could be the end of Royal Mail and that might be the intention behind this massive 38 percent increase!

Then who would delivery TNT and UKMAIL letters to private households

Framerpicture wrote:Thats a brilliant idea Keith! How long does a letter take to arrive from Maylasia?

About 1 week.

Few months ago I made a test with post from Malaysia.
Same weight sent by post and by DHL on same day
Yep - post got here first, and cost a fraction of the DHl charge

That's a fantastic idea Keith. I'm trying to buy stamps for a mailshot at the moment and they're being rationed. It's going to be my last hard copy mailshot because of postage. To mail my customer list will cost me a very minimum price increase of £500 after April. That's totally unsustainable. It's absolute Royal Mail madness. The sooner I can get all my clientele on to email the better. By the way, how much are Ryanair charging to Malaysia?

This stamp increase adds £420.00 to sending out my mailing list - we were already down to one mailing (a christmas card) a year and this increase could well be the end of it all together unless I can find a printer and envelope stuffer in Maylasia!

Does anyone use a franking machine? I have read that the postage is cheaper.

Framerpicture wrote:This stamp increase adds £420.00 to sending out my mailing list - we were already down to one mailing (a christmas card) a year and this increase could well be the end of it all together unless I can find a printer and envelope stuffer in Maylasia!

Are you serious?
I do actually know a couple who are printers and have kids who could do the stuffing, and stick stamps on.
They print my Chinese New Year cards for me.
The 2 on the right in pic below - sorry its such a lousy pic!

PM me if you want to ask them for a price

GeoSpectrum wrote:Does anyone use a franking machine? I have read that the postage is cheaper.

We used a franking machine last christmas- It was cheaper, but only because it was on a 30 day free trial-
Otherwise the machine is £12.95 a month they charge you £5.00 for each time you top up on your postag,and it uses a lot of ink to print the stamp - which if you buy from pitney bowes is £60.00 a cartridge and as this only does a 1000 envelopes negates any saving.

I tried to get UK mail to deliver but as we were only sending 3000 letters they weren't even interested in quoting.

We do get a far better response to hard copy mailings over electronic mailings but hopefully this will change in time!

It makes me more determined to use email & fax for everything so won't be bulk buying any stamps.

We used to spend £500 a month at the postoffice despatching frames but after the last strike we switched to a courier and have not looked back!

Its a no win situation for them as the more it goes up to protect revenue, the more sales will fall so its not a good outlook for royal mail.....