Turnbull has just given Australia post permission to jack up letter rate.

[beallieblue-oz]

Hi Folks for all those , like me who use letter rate parcels, AP will put Slowwwwwwwwwwww rate up to $1 which I have to use 2 stamps. ( they say about 2 days longer than normal)

and god know what for normal rate. Don't know when this will start.

I think sales will get worse.

[missbonnielovesglitter]

I worry that increasing the letter rate from 70c to $1 will be the end of my business

at the moment I sell small items that I post as a letter

I find that if I price my goods at $2.99 free postage they sell

but at $3.20 - $3.50 free postage - it doesn't sell

this is history repeating for me

years ago I used sell 100g balls of knitting wool on ebay

sales were good

then australia post abolished 250g parcels

the price of postage for my wool went from about $3.50 to $6

and sales dried up overnight

Australia post is already very expensive compared with the rest of the world

how can it cost less to post something from overseas to Australia

than it does to post something from Melbourne to Adelaide??????

PLEASE EBAY GIVE US A FREE LISTING WEEKEND, EVERY FORTNIGHT BETWEEN NOW & WHEN THE PRICE OF STAMPS GOES UP, SO I CAN SELL MY STOCK!

[x3n0m]

PLEASE EBAY GIVE US A FREE LISTING WEEKEND, EVERY FORTNIGHT BETWEEN NOW & WHEN THE PRICE OF STAMPS GOES UP, SO I CAN SELL MY STOCK!

Ah yes .. the old panic selling as sellers adjust to the changes and rush for the doors .. where would ebay be without it?

[es1989]

Sadly this what happens when people vote for conservative governments. I'm currently doing uni research and almost 80% percent of voters are better off under labor, yet they never learn! Also over 30% of the people who are better of with conservative governments vote labor because they realise the country as a whole is better off. We are becoming another USA. Ignorant people are the people running the country by voting for conservative governments! So thanks to those people for potentially adding $2700 a year to my postal bills 😉

[Anonymous]

at the end of the day its the end user that will pay for this

sellers will have 3 options
1) absorb the extra postage cost
2) pass extra postage cost on to the buyer (if you use postage cost)
3) bump up your selling price to accomodate extra postage cost (if you use free postage)

so we as sellers either take a hit or the buyer takes the hit and risk losing sales due to higher costs

For me.. i offer free postage on my items and i send 95% of my items by large letter. So my postage costs will go up $0.60 - $0.90 per sale

i guess we'll have a few months to decide

[Anonymous]

I had to laugh when I read this.....there are 2 ideologies, conservative governments in times where tax revenue deteriorates cut services to avoid raising taxes, and increase costs to services to pay for itself. The other ideology is increase spending and raise the safety net for those who cannot afford, socialist approach, which history has proven over time and time again always fails, and hence increase taxes, and can you point anywhere in history where taxation lead to prosperity in a nation? Higher taxes reduces consumer spending. The problem with socialism it fails when it runs out of other peoples money. Either way each has it losers and winners. Nice political rant, but calling people ignorant because they do not follow your ideology beliefs does not make them ignorant but perhaps makes you ignorant at the same time.

[x3n0m]

es1989 you are not alone in your dismay ..

one only need look at what Abbott did immediately after fooling the electorate

1. A) He approved the dumping of dredge spoils into the barrier reef (that was day 1)
2. B) He removed the mining tax on super profits (that is a tax on abnormally huge profits from the removal of Australian resources usually by Tax dodging Multi-nationals, these same people brought down the 1st Rudd led government via a lavishly expensive nationwide advertising/brainwashing campaign)
3. C) He managed to remove the Carbon Tax but as we are already signed on for an international G12 G20 UN Carbon trading treaty (signed off by Rudd) which kicks in later this year that will basically mean that instead of becoming carbon neutral and fund that internally that we will now send our Carbon Tax offshore and be forced to buy Carbon Credits from dodgy 3rd world countries all managed by the IMF with their Swiss Bank connections and everything run through Al Gores carbon trading company for a commision which is half owned by the petro chemical cartels which interestingly have full CO2 footprint exemption with the ultimate aim of shutting down the coal industry world wide before the green technology is created to scrub CO2 from chimney stacks thus making us even more reliant on oil as an energy source .. meanwhile the technology to harvest solar energy is being thwarted by various nasty patent law wrangles which in no uncertain terms a breech of could lead to military conflict .. in effect the technology that could free us all and turn the planet onto near to free energy is being hidden so that we cannot access it and thus pay through the nose to prop up a variety of obsolete malthusian industries ....

Abbott is a gullible fool who has been reared in an ideology of affluence and allowed himself to be hypnotised by a parade of well heeled lobbyist groups who have promised to shine the light for the world to move forward to a Utopia but the truth is that Utopia is one where the o.1ers own us all lock stock and barrel and every spare dollar is funneled to Switzerland ..

I am an advocate of the theory of 200 Tyrants who will stop at nothing to enslave everything and everyone within their sphere of influence ..

yes we need to feed the rich .. they are very hungry .. and if we don't "they" will slaughter us all from the safety of tax payer funded concrete bunker miles beneath the surface of the planet ..

[shassaz-atic]

Wouldn't it make more sense to lower the Postage so as to increase volume, i think most sellers in Australia would then sell more to Overseas & local buyers as the rate to send an item is just  to high, i feel Oz post & the Government are out of touch with likes of Ebay, Facebook, etc etc ...

[putney32]

---

@noragshere wrote:

Wouldn't it make more sense to lower the Postage so as to increase volume, i think most sellers in Australia would then sell more to Overseas & local buyers as the rate to send an item is just  to high, i feel Oz post & the Government are out of touch with likes of Ebay, Facebook, etc etc ...

---

Aust Post know quite well the effects of on line shoping on their profit line.  Aust Post are making good profits on their parcel business, in fact it has grown substantially in last 2 financial years, however, it is the local letter rate postage (70c currently) that is running as a huge loss, there are fewer and fewer users of 'letter rate' as more people and businesses turn to online communications, which is why the current proposal is to increase the letter rate only, with a slower delivery time (ie letters will go same as parcels, by road as opposed to currently the majority go by air interstate). Also, postal workers have increased wages over the last 2 years, but less work.  the postie leaves the delivery depot with about 1/2 the load he would have had 2 years ago,,..... but still has the same number of houses to pass in order to deliver.

Red street mailing boxes will also be cut from about 1500 to 1000 in the Metro Area.  so many red boxes to clear after 6pm (or 5pm or whatever) many with zero or 1-2-3 letters in them... time is money for Aust Post they have to see how they can streamline the letter side of their business while still growing the parcel side.