Overseas parcel rate INCREASES

[creativecharm]

Just letting you all know so you can adjust overseas postage rates on your listings before next sale comes through.

I have just been to the Post Office with thin envelope containing a charm 44 grams total. Last week it would have gone at letter rate of $3.25. If going as a Parcel would have been about $8.00.

This morning rates are up. This item is now costing $20.50 to send. You can no longer send anything at "letter" rate overseas if there is an object in it. However even the "parcel" rate has more then doubled in price.

I am sending this one at my expense. It was a $10 item, with $5 postage.

I wonder how many Australian businesses sending overseas will go out of business. It's hard enough competing with Chinese sellers who sell for $1.00 including postage, without this mammoth increase in price

[lupercal]

I'm going to be printing out that statement from OzPost and carrying it in my wallet every time I go to the PO, until things settle down.

The whole 'large letter' and 'written material' thing has been nebulous and unpredictable for nearly as long as I can remember.

If you refer to both the old and the brand new 'post charges booklets, international 'large letters' are defined as 'letters / postcards' and 'documents' not exceeding certain physical characteristics. However I've had some PO eployees state that a book, for example, can't go as a 'large letter' regardless of whether it fits the size/weight criteria, because.... it's a book.  However I've never had a problem with a pamphlet  - even when it has more pages than a very thin book. So apparently, depending on who serves you, a thing is a 'document' as long as it isn't hardcover. Which is clearly ludicrous, since a hard and softcover version could contain exactly the same printed material and both be within the size/weight guidelines.

I've just learned over time which of my local PO staff are more **bleep** about this, and which more liberal, and have literally brought the same item back when someone has gone on break, and had it posted no problems.

If that statement from the OzPost representative quoted above is correct, this should no longer be a problem, nor should it matter if you're mailing completely non-printed matter related material, so long as it it's within the size/weight limits.

I ASSUME this applies to large letters within Australia also, as that would be MOST of my parcel traffic.

As to the new categories for international parcels - I remain to be convinced what's going on here. The new booklet states that a 'standard' rate airmail parcel to New Zealand, up to 2 KG, will take '10+ working days', which is obviously longer than airmail used to be. 'Standard' is given as 6+ business days, which sounds more like the old 'airmail'...

However a parcel up to 500 grams to NZ used to be $10.55.  Now it's a choice between $11.86 for 'economy' and $19.73 for 'standard' - and obviously the difference is even more marked when you're sending things further afield.

When I checked the website however, they had different delivery estimates from the booklet, and different estimates for different countries (which makes sense - but why not mention this in the damn booklet, instead of just '10+' for every country in the world?)

When I rang OzPost information they told me that 'economy' is the new 'airmail', 'standard' is the new 'express', 'express' is the new 'express courier', and I don't know what 'courier' used to be.

However when I rang the local post office to explain this to them (true: they actually asked me to find out for them), they told me that the new 'standard' is the same as the old 'surface air lifted'.  Does anyone else even REMEMBER 'surface air lifted'? That's going back to at least the 90's, if not the 80's! And another employee in the same post office the week before was telling me why they discontinued it in the first place, and why it wouldn't work anymore.

Luckily I don't have much listed at the moment, as I was anticipating going away next week, but I think I'm going to go and cancel overseas delivery on what I do have until such times as I have at least consistent anecdotal evidence about the new delivery times.

[audio-spot]

I remember surface air lifted back in the 80's, although I never used it.

However, when letters went to $1.00 a few months ago I do remember reading that Aust Post was cutting out a lot of plane movements. Perhaps economy airmail is road only transport to get it to the overseas exit point?

[lupercal]

Just a thought (this may have been mentioned somewhere in this thread) - even if the new 'economy' overseas parcel rate is the exact equivalent of the old 'airmail' (at least up to 2 KG, after which you have no choice but to choose 'standard' if you want airmail) - a 500 gram parcel to NZ is now $11.86 compared with $10.55.

Only a few months ago we got a big hike in 'large letter' rates, because OzPost was supposedly losing  money on it - but at the same time we were told repeatedly that income from parcels was booming. So how can they justify a 12% + price rise in parcels if they're rolling in parcel income? And that's assuming 'economy' really IS the old 'air mail'. If you actually have to use 'standard', the increase on the parcel I mentioned is nearly 87%!

Of course if what some befuddled PO employees told me is true, that none of the new services are exact equivalents of the old ones, it'd be more like saying the Toyota you'd been leasing has been discontinued, and you can either have a Lexus or a Great Wall.

Someone is probably going to tell me to just 'adjust my business model'. I did that when local large letter rates went up a few months back, and it basically meant deciding not to bother listing a lot of low price/marginal profit large letter items any more. Tiny profit margins on collossal turnover is ok if you're a Casino.  Like many of you at the moment, I'll be watching to see whether this is more nickel and dime, or a dealbreaker. At the moment even the people who work for the PO can't get their stories straight.

[thesoulyearns]

Virtually every seller who posts from Australia with AusPost is in the same boat. So there may be an initial drop in sales but over time the new rates will probably be the norm across the board. As far as overseas postage, I think adding tracking for a much reduced price (e.g. compared to the only option of Express Post International previously) is a big plus. Tracking not only provides the buyer with a bit more peace of mind but allows for Seller Protection which can save alot of money in the long run. An extra $10 or so (on average) per parcel to save alot of money and bother with wondering where a parcel is, etc. If you're selling items under 500 grams then postage won't be too much of an increase.

[lupercal]

There are a few directions I could go with this, but I'll just make one point:  Australians selling overseas also have to compete with sellers from other countries, including the buyer's home country.

When I buy a book from overseas it's virtually always from the UK - not because the item is cheaper per se, but because airmail postage from the UK is dramatically cheaper than from the USA nowadays. So unless it's something I can't get elsewhere, US sellers are priced out of the market AFAIC.

[chezzy]

---

@lupercal wrote:

Does anyone else even REMEMBER 'surface air lifted'? That's going back to at least the 90's, if not the 80's! And another employee in the same post office the week before was telling me why they discontinued it in the first place, and why it wouldn't work anymore.

---

---

Yes, I remember Surface Air Lifted (SAL) and then it became Economy Airmail for a while as well. I often used them for

posting packages pre ebay days.

I also remember domestic Certified Mail, Receipted Delivery, Security Post......and have fond memories of different

pricing for small parcels

Frama stamps

ahh the good old days

[davidc4430]

is that when using the UK GSP? or are you finding some UK sellers still using normal mail?

the way our post charges are heading we will have overseas buyers whinging about our post costs like we do about theirs.

[digital*ghost]

---

@lupercal wrote:

Just a thought (this may have been mentioned somewhere in this thread) - even if the new 'economy' overseas parcel rate is the exact equivalent of the old 'airmail' (at least up to 2 KG, after which you have no choice but to choose 'standard' if you want airmail) - a 500 gram parcel to NZ is now $11.86 compared with $10.55.

Only a few months ago we got a big hike in 'large letter' rates, because OzPost was supposedly losing  money on it - but at the same time we were told repeatedly that income from parcels was booming. So how can they justify a 12% + price rise in parcels if they're rolling in parcel income? And that's assuming 'economy' really IS the old 'air mail'. If you actually have to use 'standard', the increase on the parcel I mentioned is nearly 87%!

---

Economy is the old regular airmail, standard replaces pack & track (which was previously only available to limited destinations).

Registered was also discontinued, so now you can add signature on delivery to parcels for $4.99 (that was a bug bear of mine, because I use Pack & track about once or twice a week, and it always ticked me off that I couldn't add extra cover or SOD to it, while registered wasn't trackable online [officially, and definitely not within Oz]). 

Express has been reduced, which is why they can get away with saying the average increase is only 2%.

I don't know about all the prices, but a 500g parcel sent express to the US was around $60 not so long ago, now it's about $42~odd, inclusive of tracking and SOD. 

My guess is, they're actually trying to compete with large, international courier companies, whose economy services are still pretty darn fast and not that much less than premium services, unless you're a large enough company to get bulk contract rates. 

I still send more letters than parcels, but for anyone with an ABN, you can get a discount on standard and express international parcels via a Business 250 membership. (Around 10% - some domestic services are also discounted, including extra cover). 

[lupercal]

"is that when using the UK GSP? or are you finding some UK sellers still using normal mail?"

To be honest, I usually don't bother trying to work out what service they're using; merely the expected delivery times. The items I'm talking about take roughly as long as most items airmail from the USA. It may not be the quickest option at their disposal, but most of them use it as their default, which means they at least must have an intermediate rate which makes them more competitive.

I do remember several US friends telling me some years ago that their overseas postal prices had suddenly gone ballistic, but with my sense of time, I wouldn't like to swear it was this decade.

[davidc4430]

with my area of buying, mostly radio control car bits, before the GSP i was buying a lot from the usa and uk. since it was introduced in the usa my buying there is almost nil. i still buy some from the uk but they have now had the dreaded GSP launched and its slowly spreading so i rekon my buying from the uk will end eventually.

the bargains are still there, but the postage charges ruin it all. see an item for $25 and go yes thats a good price then look at the postage and what would have been around 7-10 pounds is now 25 - 40 pounds.

no wonder hong kong sellers are winning the battle when they are offering low shipping or free.