I don't know if this is the right place to post this, but I thought someone should mention that April 6th sees the Royal Mail increasing their prices again.
http://www.royalmail.com/portal/rm/c...iaId=112700772
I've taken a quick look at the changes and it seems as though all small-weight prices have gone up, as usual, but all parcel & heavy-weight prices remain the same. In short, where there's competition in the marketplace the prices don't go up but where the Royal Mail have the monopoly they do.
A simple first class letter goes up to 41p (letter rate, up 2p), 66p (large letter, up 5p), £1.39 (packet, up 11p) - further extending the huge price gap caused by "pricing in proportion". The increase in 1st class packets has gone up by 5p-11p (11p increase for 100g, 5p increase for 2Kg). Recorded Delivery has gone down from 75p to 74p - but as the first class price goes up by 2p-11p then a 1p decrease in the Recorded Delivery fee is kind of irrelevant.
Where a single mug currently costs £2.14 (or £2.89 recorded) to post, it'll now cost £2.24 (or £2.98 recorded). Over the last three years, the price to post a single mug has gone up from £1.94 to £2.24 (£2.66 to £2.98). Meanwhile, first class packets over 4Kg have gone up by ... 0p. Funny that there's no change in the area where the Royal Mail has competition (in fact, first class packets over 4Kg actually came *down* by £4 in 2008 and haven't increased since).
Standard parcels remains the same - obviously this is also because there's plenty of courier-related competition that provide a superior service out there that the Royal Mail are afraid of.
Special Delivery goes up between 0p-65p depending on weight and service and now starts from £5.05 minium. Special Delivery for items over 2Kg remains the same at £21.65 (how many people actually use that price-inflated service for the no-change to make a difference?).
I haven't checked 2nd Class post because I don't use that service. Maybe someone else could post the changes in this thread for the benefit of others?
Anyway, the link above will take you to the relevant Royal Mail page where you can download a PDF and check prices for yourself.
I hope this helps everyone prepare for the increases.