Postal Charges up by Nearly 40%

This month is seeing the cost of posting a first class letter increase by over 30%, from 46p to 60p, and second class mail is increasing even more - by nearly 40% from 36p to 50p. To send out one of our brochures costs a great deal more.

Like most businesses, we use second class post for nearly all mail. In fact we spend well over £15,000 a year on post charges, so 39% is an incredible increase.

It’s not as if we haven’t already seen price increases – there were 4 annual prices rises from Royal Mail during 2004-2008, so costs have more than doubled in less than 10 years.

With this in mind we are doing what we can to encourage people to download a conservatory blinds brochure instead, or even read it online. Our brochures are available to read and even download a copy.

It’s not just the cost of postage that impacts upon business, but the time it takes. In this modern age we all have much higher expectations for the speed that things take.

At the moment, when someone places an order, the salesperson has to post the order to the office for it to be processed onto our database system. A letter is then sent to the customer confirming their order and explaining what happens next. This process can easily take 3-4 days (or longer if the customer has opted for Interest Free Credit).

Bearing in mind that we all now only receive one post-delivery a day (and that tends to be after lunch) it is quite possible for someone to have placed an order on a Friday evening and not receive their confirmation letter for over a week, even though we have dealt with it on the same day that it arrived.

With increasing costs of fuel and post – just two examples of things that affect all businesses, all products and all services, it is easy to see how inflation will continue to increase dramatically which will only result in much higher prices to the consumer.

We have done our best to keep any price increases to an absolute minimum, but it is easy to see how this will soon be impossible.