It costs AU$85 (!!!!) to post a 2.5 kg parcel to UK. I would love to find out how much it would cost to post the same parcel from UK to AU.

So look it up on the Royal Mail website.

Just looked it up for you....the cheapest is GBP58.00 so no cheaper to send from the UK to Australia.

True, UK mail is also a rip-off but nowhere near as bad as AP. Postage in the USA is generally less than half whatt we pay here, and tracking is completely free.

[quote mid="604955942"

When the population of Australia posts the same amount of mail as the US does, then the prices will drop

[/quote]

When the Australias are prepared to subsidise the losses of Australia Post to the same degree as the US enonomy bails out the US Postal Service, then prices will drop.

Australia Post makes a small profit each year ($300 million or so)

The US Postal Service ended its third fiscal quarter (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $5.2 billion

That means that they are on track to be losing something like 20 BILLION DOLLARS THIS YEAR 😮

Not all of that was because of postage, but you ned to understand that it is not a fair comparison, eh!

GRRR - that post above didn't work properly... it was MY comment, not a quote!

When the Australias are prepared to subsidise the losses of Australia Post to the same degree as the US enonomy bails out the US Postal Service, then prices will drop.

Australia Post makes a small profit each year ($300 million or so)

The US Postal Service ended its third fiscal quarter (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $5.2 billion

That means that they are on track to be losing something like 20 BILLION DOLLARS THIS YEAR

Not all of that was because of postage, but you ned to understand that it is not a fair comparison, eh!

When the population of Australia posts the same amount of mail as the US does, then the prices will drop

At least Australia Post is not in danger of collapsing as is the USPS. A few months ago it was reported that they were broke and would have to close unless they could secure more funding.

As for free tracking....it is the same as in Australia....the tracking is included in the price of the expensive services but I believe you can add it to First Class mail.

'When the population of Australia posts the same amount of mail as the US does, then the prices will drop'

In that case, why isn't everything in the USA half as much as it is here?

There's no excuse for the OTT charges AP imposes here, just as there is no excuse for them charging $3.20 for registered postage which is nothing more than an addtional payment to keep them honest.

GRRR - that post above didn't work properly... it was MY comment, not a quote! When the Australias are prepared to subsidise the losses of Australia Post to the same degree as the US enonomy bails out the US Postal Service, then prices will drop. Australia Post makes a small profit each year ($300 million or so) The US Postal Service ended its third fiscal quarter (April 1 – June 30) with a net loss of $5.2 billion That means that they are on track to be losing something like 20 BILLION DOLLARS THIS YEAR Not all of that was because of postage, but you ned to understand that it is not a fair comparison, eh!

I will not comment on the economic side of it as I would have no clue on I am talking about there, particularly for US. Although government subsidies for postal services sound like a good idea if that's what's necessary to make australian on-line business competitive on the world market.

what I am not getting is why millions of dollars are spent on advertising campaigns such as these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amq84J4nWwY

for an organisation which has no competition. is that fair on consumers? Why is that money being thrown away? why is this spending not being regulated?

Just looked it up for you....the cheapest is GBP58.00 so no cheaper to send from the UK to Australia.

I am not familiar with the UK postal services and cannot comment.

What I do know is that I quite often order from large as well as small UK on-line stores and delivery charges are very reasonable. Somehow they seem to manage that.