Postage zones in the UK.

I agree absolutely, postage should be the same throughout the UK, otherwise the new boys can just cherry pick and leave the difficult stuff to RM.

One bit of this thread that has not been mentioned is that when I had to pay a company extra to have delivery to my IV postcode in the Highlands I had a hard time to get the company to pay me the extra for me to return the faulty device, now the reason they gave me was that it does not cost extra for a return journey.

Anyone care to enlighten me why it is more expensive to send stuff north but not so expensive to send from north to south.

Dod, They probably think they will use less energy as it is down hill

I ordered a winch yesterday, just got an email cancelling my order " because I have AB post code". They accepted the order and knew my address. I think there is more going on, we will soon see. Downhill delivery- I sent 4 lumps of steel fab down to Heathrow last year, cost about 1/4 of delivery to me from there. Maybe we want the work at this end.

If it was bought off ebay it seems ebay provide a paid for return postage label at a fixed cost. I bought a motor recently that had to go back - bad description and the markings on the motor were incorrect. I thought that the seller was being awkward as it wasn't clear that I could claim my return costs. I expected the return details on ebay would just be an address - it wasn't. It was a pre paid parcel label. Talking to the seller he told me the cost. Can't remember what it was but it was very low. It seems Ebay sort this out as a service for sellers. It was a drop at post office label, 48hr and tracked.

John

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May sound daft - but if there is a lot more delivery traffic into a location/area than there is outbound, operators may drop the price charged for the outbound leg in an attempt to pick up 'back loads'. Running a vehicle empty still has to be paid for. Can't say if this applies or not in the example given.

Hello David.

I hadn't considered that there might be a difference in charges for parcels going from north to south and vice versa. Out of curiosity, therefore, I went on line and checked the prices for a fictitious 10KG parcel going from NW highlands to Southampton and got a price of circa £15, and the same parcel from Southampton to NW Highlands of circa £18 which proved your surmise correct and was very revealing, A small surcharge of £3, but this could possibly be seen as a reasonable extra charge.

It certainly highlights however some of the outrageous surcharges we have been getting from some suppliers

Kind regards

Anna

An interesting comparison:

Today I received a parcel, from Germany

Weight 6kg

Length 50cm

Width 41cm

Height 21.5cm

This cost me £12.95 delivery

It started its jouney with GLS, and it was delivered by Parcelforce.

... Put those numbers into **LINK**

https://ship.parcelforce.net/service

and you will see that It would cost me more to ship it to my next-door neigbour !!

MichaelG.

That is down in part to how shipping from outside of the UK is handled Michael. Most countries have agreed that their main national domestic carriers will deliver for free. That's RM in the UK plus Parcel Force. If the person in Germany had use UPS or some company like that which can handle packages at both ends the costs would be very different.

This is why USPS works out so cheaply from the USA - RM / PF handle it at this end. This should make RM / PF cheaper when we ship out of the UK. It sometimes is but they charge way more than USPS does out of the USA for instance. Canada's domestic shipper charges a lot too.

I did here one of out politicians view on RM handling these for free - why on earth did we agree to that. It's some sort of international agreement as far as I can tell that they would love to get out of. They do over charge for collecting any tax though so that must help. Also bringing down the free limit

John

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I've got my refund for the winch. Ordered another from different company, same part of UK. Not only do they deliver to darkest Scotland but it is free. Carrier is yodel.

Hence we can buy something from China for less than the UK shipping would cost. Only trouble is No VAT + low wages + no duty + low shipping costs = No British industry.

Brian

You think we have it bad, it seems to cost more to send things from one end of Australia to the other than from the UK to Australia.

Neil

Yes and have the UK use far eastern working practices, labour costs, working conditions and living standards competing with them wouldn't be a problem.

Curiously though labour costs are only a small part of the equation. A more serious aspect is that manufacture of any sort requires more capitol and risk so from a money making stance it makes more sense for some one else to do that and just buy and sell things. The percentage return is higher. Or be a service of some sort of course.

From a manufacturing point of view the size of the home market also has a considerable effect at leas initially as companies grow.

Whoops forgot to mention that we had best re open our copper, tin and iron ore mines as well. The Romans may have left some of the first 2. Not sure how much of the last one is left. There still is a bit of gold mining going on. Not much though. A lot of it is people on holiday in Scotland.

John

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Edited By Ajohnw on 02/08/2016 19:43:48

In a previous employment I was sent parts overnight Edinburgh to me and the carrier the company used did not charge any extra for delivery to Inverness areas but most of the companies they carried for charged extra for north of Scotland areas, One supplier of advertising materials charged every branch of the R?S Bank £15 extra for the Highlands so made £255 per load sent out for covering supposed higher cost to deliver in the north of Scotland.

Makes one mad about grasping companies down the map a bit.

DOD ... Its down hill from the North to the South ?

Living in France, a lot of UK official post (Inland Revenue included) is post marked Holland or Germany. When I queried this with one company, they said that these 'carriers' were actually in the UK. It didn't make any sense then or even now.
BobH

One thing, the Chinese arn't buying coal as they were, we only get about one coal train a day through here now, instead of at least eight a day a year or so ago, that's 1500 tonnes per train.

Ian S C

I used to run a mail order company for years until two years ago. I would send out orders over £ 100.00 post free, every now and then I would get an order and payment from Scotland, send off the box, then at the end of the month get the invoice from UK mail and see I had been charged £ 25.00 for sending a box to Aberdeen that should have been £ 10.00, the courier had there own ideas of what to charge for Scotland, it changed with the weather, I always lost out. As for northern Ireland if it too heavy for parcel force we gave refunds, £ 35.00 being a normal price for 10Kg to N.I. I see that Arc euro will send a 9Kg box to France for £ 9.00, now that's a bargain. The dealer often looses out don't blame him all then time, try paying with a debit card rather than a credit card, it all helps the hobby

Just had 5ltr of Quartz 7000 diesel oil and an oil filter delivered, about 5kg all up. Postage was £3.95, and that was from Dublin, with water in between, and it was flown over!

I can understand high charges for the Scottish islands, but mainland, come on, it's 2016 for gods sake!

Steve

I just sent a parcel off. 2.9kg so outside RM's small parcel limit. I don't think size was. Best I could do was DPD drop off at one of their collection points - fairly local shop but had to drive.Cost £8.50 via parcel monkey. No where special postal code wise. Parcel2Go charge more for insurance and nothing they offered was really any cheaper. All dearer in fact.

I saw a business quote of just over 1/2 of that or seemed to be but it looked like an actual quote was required.

Parcel Force drop of at a post office would have been £11 odd and around £1 more if the post office had labelled it etc. I sent a much larger parcel yesterday that weighed about 10Kg. PF drop at post office was cheapest. Same price as the small one today would have been.

I could have had it picked up for an extra quid or so but that would mean hanging around all day.

I've been selling my unwanted big boys toys on and off for some time and I reckon the cost have escalated by rather a lot over 5 or so years. The cost of the toys has too - far more over a longer period.

John

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