Tag: UK

UK Royal Mail to increase price of first-class stamps

Posted by | Dec 11, 2004 | |

Royal Mail put the interests of its business customers firmly ahead of personal users yesterday by increasing the cost of first-class postage in a move designed to prepare the organisation for open competition in 2006.

Adam Crozier, the chief executive, announced he would raise the price of a first-class stamp by 2p to 30p from 7 April next year, and declared that the public could no longer expect to be subsidized by business customers.

The second-class stamp will stay at 21p and prices will fall for some business services, including Mailsort and CleanMail. Mr Crozier said: “Royal Mail last year lost about 5p for every first-class stamped letter and about 9p for every second-class stamped letter. Business customers cover those costs. As more competitors chase those big customers, we need to reduce that subsidy if we are to compete on a fair and equal basis.”

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UK postage prices to change to reflect costs of handling mail

Posted by | Dec 10, 2004 | |

The price of a basic First Class stamp will go up from 28p to 30p from 7 April 2005, Royal Mail confirmed today. Many business mail services will see very much smaller increases and, in some cases, real decreases, as Royal Mail takes the first steps toward rebalancing its prices to reflect actual costs and prepares for full competition in the market. The basic rate for Second Class mail will remain at 21p for all customers and overall the price of postage for 40% of Royal Mail’s daily mailbag of some 83 million items will not change.
Royal Mail’s Chief Executive Adam Crozier said that with the UK mail market potentially fully open to competition from January 2006, it was essential that Royal Mail’s postage prices started to reflect the true cost to the company of collecting, sorting and delivering mail. Mr Crozier also said that the current system under which some customers cross-subsidise others could not continue in an open market.

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UK Royal Mail widens the gap between 1st and 2nd class stamps

Posted by | Dec 10, 2004 | |

Postwatch is very disappointed that Royal Mail has today announced that 1st class stamp prices will be increased by 2 pence to 30 pence from next April. Postwatch has consistently called on Royal Mail to freeze prices until they start to achieve acceptable levels of performance. Postwatch is also surprised that Royal Mail has chosen to widen the gap between 1st and 2nd class stamps.
Peter Carr, Chairman of Postwatch, commenting on the price increase said:
“Once again Royal Mail is increasing revenues by asking householders and
small businesses to pay more for their stamps. These are the customers least
likely to be offered a competitive alternative.

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Acquisition of Citipost Group by AMP Investments Ltd

Posted by | Dec 10, 2004 | |

Alternative Mail & Parcels Investments Ltd (AMP) acquired the Citipost Group from Royal Mail on the 10th December 2004. Citipost Group is a niche Financial Research Distribution Company, which AMP are confident will compliment AMP’s existing business interests. AMP is the market leader in B2B Catalogue, Directory and Publications distribution in the UK. Coupled with their international division, AMP Worldwide, they provide a solid existing
framework into which Citipost will be incorporated. AMP recently secured a long term postal licence from Postcomm, the postal industry regulator, which enables it to provide bulk mail, consolidated mail and tracked business-to-business mail services in the UK through it’s existing delivery network.

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Christmas stocking on the net

Posted by | Dec 9, 2004 | |

TINSEL TIME 2004 and one question is dominating the High Street: where have all the Christmas shoppers gone? Did they stock up at Marks & Spencer’s one-day Christmas sale spectacular, or were they too busy sweeping up Mix & Match three-for-the-price-of-two offers at Boots? Were they queueing up for the pre-Christmas sales at Allders or Debenhams or filling their stockings with buy-one-get-one-free DVDs at WH Smith? While High Street stalwarts are increasingly resorting to desperatelooking promotional drives to lure shoppers, online retailers are reporting phenomenal sales. The latest figures coming through are so strong that internet retail association Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) had to raise its earlier prediction of online Christmas sales, made in October, by more than 15% to Pounds 4 billion.

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