Royal Mail customs clearance fees

Is Royal Mail trying to stifle the import and export of small packages? They recently applied a stiff increase to overseas postage rates.

The logic seems to be this. The Royal Mail loses money on every package it delivers so by not delivering any packages at all, they won't lose any money. There's probably a flaw in that argument somewhere but I haven't yet figured out what it is?

The charge wouldn't be so bad but the customer has to do all the work for them. They no longer deliver charged items so the customer has to make a special journey to the sorting office. Quite often they don't even bother putting a card through the door saying an item is awaiting collection.

(kim)

Parcelforce now simply send an invoice for the handling/customs and want it cleared before they try and deliver. And they reserve the right to charge for failed delivery attempts. As well as Saturday delivery.

I live in Portland, Oregon. I purchased some models last week from the UK, and they sent it Royal Mail on Monday. The models arrived on Thursday. The postage charge 4.95 pounds.

The US post office frequently takes a week or more to get a package from New York City to here.

UPS? Fed Ex? Take a look at what they charge for UK to USA services! The kits I ordered only weigh about 1 lb total for purpose of rate calculation.

What really got me annoyed was the US$6.50 charge for "foreign transaction fee" charged by the credit card company. Next time I'll mail a good old fashioned paper check made out in foreign currency.

"MartinS" wrote

I don't recall a recent increase in postage rates for overseas mail, at least not of the air mail / small packet variety.

John.

In message , John Turner writes

You will tomorrow :-)

Graeme wrote in news:b6J9icYfIAEGFwC7 @nospam.demon.co.uk:

Good job its April 1st!

(checks Royal Mail website)

Damm.

Last September, wasn't it?

"MartinS" wrote

Not to my knowledge, although there was some readjustment to internal UK postal rates.

John.

I recently bought a Corgi OOC bus on eBay for £8 and postage cost £6.30. And no, the seller didn't rip me off - that was the amount on the label.

"MartinS" wrote

Maybe he didn't use the 'small packet' rate?

John.

You can have them delivered to your local PO for 50pence.

MBQ

That may be a big hit, but keep in mind that a customs broker or private courier company will charge you a good deal more. Eg, base UPS rate is $38, not including taxes, excise, duties, etc. About 15GBP according to the exchange rate, over 30GBP in terms of purchasing power.

Also, international postage rates are not set by Royal Mail. They are negotiated between Royal Mail and all the other postal authorities in the world. A hefty chunk of that rate goes to the other postal authorities, as regulated by the International Postal Union.

"Wolf" wrote

But presumably that is off-set by a percentage of income from those 'other postal authorities', or am I misunderstanding your meaning?

John.

International Small Packet Rate for 540-560g is £6.32, which is what was charged. The seller ate the 32p.

The item including plastic box weighs 400g, so I guess the rest was external packing. Those Corgi boxes weigh 150-200g alone.

Maybe there wasn't such a big increase; an order for 2 Corgi models last September cost £2 more for postage than a 9F loco plus a Pocketbond Classix truck in August, but on checking I find the 2 Corgis weigh more!

I'm surprised to see that Royal Mail overseas rates go in 20g increments; Canada Post goes 100g - 250g - 500g - 1kg - 2kg for small packets.

Perhaps, but the international rate structures for Royal Mail and Canada Post are quite different.

AIUI, it's "revenue neutral." I'll ask my bro'.

Well, yes and no. We have lower rates to the USA, just as GB has lower rates to the EU, and for the same general reasons. At one time, we had lower rates to GB and the rest of the Commonwealth countries, and vice versa.

One thing that a lot of people seem to be unaware of is that transporting small freight (letters, parcels, etc) to many destinations is very expensive compared to transporting bulk freight to one or a few destinations. If it weren't for various direct and indirect government subsidies, we'd be paying a lot more. (For that matter, all transport is subsidised - it's just usually not obvious where and how the subsidies accrue. Also, some subsidies may be private, as when shipping charges are waived for large orders.)