Royal Mail accused of misleading over price rises

The Royal Mail has been accused of misleading the public over the scale of its price prices, according to one rival.

Hamilton House Mailings claims that while the Royal Mail’s price rises have been presented by the company as being a simple just above inflation price adjustment, analysis it has done show that the rises are in fact much steeper.

Hamilton House analysed the outcome for a series of typical mailings to 5,000 addresses with a standard 50/50 direct/residue split.

At low weights, it said it found increases in the 3% to 4% range. However, with packet mail the price increases it said were typically between 6% and 7%. When it looked at the heavier packages it found price decreases with the mailing of 5,000 1.4kg packets, resulting in a price decrease of 24%.

Tony Attwood, chairman of Hamilton House, said: “Once again creative teams and mailing teams are going to have to get together to work out the best approach for their customers — and the answers from April are going to be very different from the answers that exist today.

“It really is a great shame that the structure was not sorted out once and for all last August, so that we all knew where we were going.”

The full Hamilton House report is available at the firm’s website (http://www.hamilton-house.com/RMprices.html)