[ellisr]

Royal Mail are putting there prices up as from the 30th of April, first class will rise 30% and second class 39%.

This is outrageous in the current economic climate, if like me people trade online and post goods this is going to make a huge difference and customers may decide not to buy.

[sabrina]

I no longer post letters but use e-mail, they are pricing themselves out of the market and as you say in such hard times its just plain stupid. My Oh has not had a pay rise in 5 years but everything just keeps going up 

[doganjo]

Documents can be sent by email in one form or another, hard goods can be sent by Courier - there are plenty of them ready to take up the slack from Royal Mail - but don't forget that Royal Mail and the Post Office are completely different entities.  Post Offices are in the main privately owned businesses and should be supported if possible

[Sandy]

Parcels taken  to the post office go Royal Mail, so, the the post office may loose trade too!!! I understand that a lot of mail order stuff will now be more costly due to the price of postage, I dabbled a bit but there is a limit to what people will pay postage, especialy on small items,  that is bad, with all the shops now empty due to lack of business and now small mail order businesses will be worse off...not forgetting fuel costs in general....we just got our whopppping heating bill and to ANYONE, with a B&B saving money is just impossible, unless you have a good other income!!

[Bangbang]

I think the post office make there money on parcels, so there deliberately
pricing letters out of the market. I know its there market - just not enough profit.
I believe its soon to be privatised anyway - so letters with tescos stamps could soon be the
in thing 

[tizaala]

Let Richard Branson run it , this bloody government is getting too greedy.

[Moleskins]

Tizzala,
can you stop mincing your words and give us your straight opinion?

[ellisr]

I have just had a hike in packaging costs which I have absorbed for a few months and now this is going to nearly double the cost of P&P and couriers are not cheaper so I actually have no choice but I can see our online business spiralling downwards just when we have built it up

[Mel]

It is already disgusting,for parcels nowadays I always use  www.interparcel.com  a worthwhile link for you all, it is not worht the hassle anymore,I just book them in and the couriers collect,rather than having to use up all my fuel in going to my nearest main post office 8 miles away,seems to make sense to me though you do have to wait in for the courier to collect.

I sometimes leave them with the neighbours if I am out but I am rarely far away from home!

[Lesley Silvester]

I'm not generally in favour of privatisation for the sake of it but I think it can only be a good thing for Royal Mail. 

The one that annoys me is the new way of dealing with letters that don't have enough postage (easy to do with the different sizes).  At one time it would be delivered and ther post man/woman would knock and ask if you want it.  You could look (I once read a postcard without a stamp) and give it back if you weren't interested.  If you want it you paid the difference.  Now you have to go to collect it from the sorting office and pay £1 on top of the difference, you're not allowed to look at it first so could end up paying more than a pound for a begging letter or other junk mail. 

On the other hand, I once didn't bother to collect a letter because I wasn't expecting anything, only to have my daughter ask )about three weeks later) "Did you like the card the chldren made you?"

[lill]

Absolutely disgusted with the price hike of the stamp increase. I will be choosing very carefully to either post, email or call from now on, greedy bas...ds , is wages going up to the same increase level, no there are not  The companies of today think were are all stupid and pay the price they ask for items, yes we have got used to letters 6 days a week but how many of us get junk mail on these days, Mondays for us is junk mail and no letters, our poatman comes at around 2pm and this is him starting at 6am at xmas it is 3pm before we even see him sometimes later.

[Sylvia]

 My nephew, now in his forties, sent my mother a letter when he was about six. This was off his own bat, no help from parents. The address was" Grane Mord(Maud), Ruin Minerd (Ruan Minor) Cornwel." He'd put a green shield stamp on the envelope. It got to Ma, no problem! Would it nowadays though?

[Fowgill Farm]

As someone who works indirectly for Royal Mail can i ask one of YOU to deliver a letter from one end of the country to the other for 60p.... No didn't think anyone would want to so stop griping we still have the best and cheapest postal service in the world. Royal mail and the companies who supply it with goods and services will not survive without a significant increase in the cost of postage, before long it will be like all the other once great companies in this country and be owned by foreigners and then just wait and see what happens to prices.
Use it or lose it.
Mandy 

[robert waddell]

and just why are all these once great company's owned by foreign money
because we Brits just suffer any price increases the water co and telephone co charge for sending a bill out you charge for sending bills out  you will be told where to go and lose that customer
far to long we have suffered price increases extra taxes  while the government creams of even more money to sit on there arse and say yes the taxpayer will pay for everything
iceland had a people revolt it is time for the UK  to revolt
12 bob to post a letter there was outcry when petrol went to 50pence a gallon because of speculators
and Mandy they are not taking one letter at a time but artic and plane loads of them at thesame time
the peasants of France brought down there government  it could happen here as well

[Berkshire Boy]

Well said Mandy the only person who speaks common sence. Yes its a big increase but still the cheapest in europe and as Mandy says can you deliver a letter anywhere in the country next day for 60p NO exactly.