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Thanks for the details, it is appreciated.

 

Come to think of it, why is a 500 gram satchel (that has size limitations) $8.15 when you can package the item yourself with no size limits for $7.95?

 

Regarding label printing at the Post Office, that does sound potentially troublesome (putting online AusPost labels on a USB stick etc). I thought it was as simple as getting the staff to print the usual small rectangle labels and just scan then and there.

 

Now I come across probably my biggest downfall: the fact that the 10% discount doesn't apply to International Economy Parcels. 99% of my air mail parcels are economy so this is a big disappointment. 5 parcels a week (10% discount) I can do but not 10 parcels a week (12.5% discount). And here I was hoping for much needed discounts on my expensive economy parcels to places like the UK and Brazil and France and other expensive countries to post to ($22-$25+ per 500 gram parcel). Again, big disappointment.

 

Again, thanks for the info in your posts.

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The red above is the biggest issue with the new system and it's the reason I stopped using it.

I started out with Click&Send and kept going through the different iterations until just recently.

The new arrangement that instituted a 6 week cycle for discount structure qualification is a definite trap.

For about 4 years I was always above the old 250 parcel threshold (I still am) and everything went along nicely.

Just after the new system was introduced, for 3 Mondays in the period, the service was unavailable or too dysfunctional to use so in order to keep my parcels flowing I used eBay labels.

As a result I lost my discount.

When I pointed this out to AP CS the message was "tough luck".

Now I just satisfy myself with using the eBay labels exclusively as I don't want to be fiddling with postage price variations every 6 weeks or so.

The upshot for AP is that the labels I am buying from eBay are obtained from AP at the maximum concessional discount (though I pay at the 10% level) so AP are doing themselves out of dough.

The 6 week cycle is a trap for smaller sellers (and big ones too if they are near a cutoff point for volume).

You'll set your pricing according to your postage cost inputs and the last thing you need is for that to change every 6 weeks as your volume goes up and down.

For the larger volume sellers who post internationally; you would be badly affected by even a temporary slowdown as certain services would become unavailable as well as others dearer so profit margins would take periodic hits.