Postage/Shipping Costs!

[DavePEI]

Hi All:

I did some interesting math yesterday, taking all my purchases for the museum over the past two years, adding them up, then taking the cost of shipping on all of them, and also adding that up.

Though as I have said before, we do pay excessive rates here in Canada for shipping, it works out that on every $100 spent on phones rounded off to the nearest dollar, I had to pay an average $80 in shipping! That means had I not had to pay for shipping, I could have bought almost twice as much for the same amount! On small purchases, it is quite normal to pay more for shipping than for the item.

For us the cheapest is still USPS/Canada Post, followed by Fedex, and by far the most expensive is UPS, due largely to their hidden customs clearance charges when the item hits the border.  This charge is for customs brokerage (taxes plus brokerage fees), and is many times that which is collected if an item goes USPS.

Just thought these were some pretty amazing stats! It would be interesting to do the same going back ten years ago,, and using the actual figures from then. Certainly, shipping was even then a major cost, but not nearly what we are paying now.

Ouch!

If only I were healthy enough to go to the telephone shows!

Dave

[twocvbloke]

Postage costs are why I've stopped buying from the US, for a $10 WE500 phone, I could end up paying up to about $50 to 90 to get it posted here by USPS, it ain't worth it, and about 7 years ago I could get a large box full of electrical stuff sent over for $30, for the same box I'd probably pay a lot more...

Kind of makes me wonder, the US wants international trade (keeps the economy stimulated after all!!), but pretty much rips off those of us who want to trade their goods for our money, doesn't seem fair reall...

[DavePEI]

Kind of makes me wonder, the US wants international trade (keeps the economy stimulated after all!!), but pretty much rips off those of us who want to trade their goods for our money, doesn't seem fair reall...

Well, I am not pointing my finger solely at the US at all. Canada Post gets a large cut out of items sent from the US to here. Look at the number of US collectors concerned about the high cost of shipping from Canada to there. It goes both ways.

Those in China/Taiwan have the right idea - making postal rates low enough to encourage export rather than to deter it. While Canada Post and USPS claim their future is in shipping parcels, they appear to be going in the wrong direction to increase their business - they should be lowering their rates on the items they hope will grow their business into the future.

I knew I was paying a very large part of my phone budget on shipping. It only punctuated that point when I did the math! There have been a number of wonderful people who have donated items to the museum, but by far the majority of new items I pay for (both shipping and postage). Sadly, I fund the museum alone, and it would sure help if postage cost less!

Dave

[AE_Collector]

Are you sure that Canada Post gets a large cut on shipments to Canada Dave? We discussed it previously on CRPF somewhere but I always heard that the Post Office system that collects the postage fee....keeps it! They decided long ago to keep it real simple and deliver the stuff for free when handed across the borders. No complicated calculations to do and it would all work out in the wash.

Consequently, the PO's try to keep shipping within the country as low priced as possible but as soon as it is an item leaving the country it is time to make some money to more than cover the stuff coming in at the border where they are paid nothing to deliver it.

And I was led to belive this is the way it works the world over with Post Offices at least, letters as well as parcels. Thus little countries like Hong Kong that just load everything international onto planes and that is the end of their expense AND their incoming international deliveries are all delivered very close to their airport (no shipping 3000 mies across the country) are able to ship interntional like Hong Kong does, 99 cents, shipping included etc.

A few years ago I heard that USPS and and Canada Pos twere arguing. Supposedly the country that collects the fee is supposed to hand it over to the delivering PO as close as practical to it's destination. So an item from Seattle to you in PEI would be sent across the US and most likely be sent across the border into Quebec or at least Ontario for Canada Post to deliver to you. But the USPS was in financila trouble just like the yare now so they were sending that item from Seattle to the closest place in Canada, Vancouver and making Canada Post deliver it 3000 miles for zero revenue. During the battle Canada Post solved it by storing everything from the US in retaliation!

Terry

[DavePEI]

Hi Terry:

That was the way it worked for many years after the formation of the International Postal Union. However, in 1991 there was a change: The United States negotiated a separate terminal dues formula with thirteen European countries and Canada that includes a rate per piece plus a rate per kilogram.

Dave

[AE_Collector]

Oh okay. Do you know what happens with all other countries? Would many of them still be on that old original way of doing things? Seems antiquated but if it aint broke don't fix it might apply.

Terry

[DavePEI]

Oh okay. Do you know what happens with all other coutries? Would many of them still be on that old original way of doing things? Seems antiquated but if it aint broke don't fix it might apply.

Terry

I was doing some reading on it this morning... I think smaller countries still pay a by piece fee to the Postal Union (UN), and it distributes it in a somewhat equitable way to the nations involved. There may also have been some nations added to the list who deal directly since 1991 - I am not sure...

Still, getting back to my point, the high postal rates today are severely hurting purchasers on-line!

Dave

[TelePlay]

Still, getting back to my point, the high postal rates today are severely hurting purchasers on-line!

I agree. However, I have found the ever increasing postal rates a strong deterrent, if not a cure, for phoneitis . . . , and I'm not kidding about that, either.

[Andre91]

I just purchased a couple of phones on eBay, and to have them shipped to my residence in Canada would have cost something like $50 per phone. I instead had them shipped to a US address; one was $13 and the other shipped free. The broker charges $5 per package, and even factoring in the cost of gas+bridge tolls I am still saving money (and it is a trip I would make anyways).

[twocvbloke]

I agree. However, I have found the ever increasing postal rates a strong deterrent, if not a cure, for phoneitis . . . , and I'm not kidding about that, either.

Same here, over here in the UK, with the Post Office bumping up prices, it makes it less appealing to buy a certain item over a certain amount as the postage added on top is getting silly, though this is often down to some people charging way too much for something that shouldn't cost a lot to post, rather than checking the prices before selling...

But like I say, for me here in the UK, the US prices are just too extortionate to be justified, there's so much I'd love to buy, but the cost is just so prohibitive that I can't justify it, which really sucks when it comes to collecting stuff, or even finding repair parts for things that aren't sold here...

[G-Man]

I agree. However, I have found the ever increasing postal rates a strong deterrent, if not a cure, for phoneitis . . . , and I'm not kidding about that, either.

Same here, over here in the UK, with the Post Office bumping up prices, it makes it less appealing to buy a certain item over a certain amount as the postage added on top is getting silly, though this is often down to some people charging way too much for something that shouldn't cost a lot to post, rather than checking the prices before selling...

But like I say, for me here in the UK, the US prices are just too extortionate to be justified, there's so much I'd love to buy, but the cost is just so prohibitive that I can't justify it, which really sucks when it comes to collecting stuff, or even finding repair parts for things that aren't sold here...

Blaming one country's postal service or another's is not realistic since it seems that almost all of them are losing enormous amount of money.

I have pasted below a Synopsis of the U.K.'s postal dilemma below but it seems to be about the same as that of other countries as well. I know it certainly reflects what is going on with the U.S. Postal Service.

We now live in a world economy that no longer allows the continuation of subsidizing services that were once taken for granted.

Exceptions to this practice seem to be coming from emerging nations located in Asia.

It is obvious to me that the items that I have purchased on eBay from sellers located in China were shipped at below cost. It is evident that their nation is willing to subsidize postal rates in order to stimulate the dumping of merchandise at below cost in order to support their manufacturers through international trade.

Another factor is that of customs fees which vary greatly by country.

Whether we welcome it or not we are now faced with paying our own way and to not expect that rates continue to be subsidized.

------------------------------

History

The Post Office, along with postal service Royal Mail, was formerly part of the General Post Office. Post Office Ltd became a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail in 1986, under the name Post Office Counters Ltd, becoming Post Office Ltd in 2001.

Post Office Ltd has in recent years announced losses; a reported £102 million in 2006. This has raised many concerns in the media regarding Post Office Ltd's ability as a company to operate efficiently.  Plans to cut the £150m-a-year subsidy for rural post offices led to the announcement that 2,500 local Post Offices were to be closed. This announcement resulted in a backlash from local communities that rely on the service.

In 2007, the government gave a £1.7 billion subsidy to Royal Mail Group so that it could turn a profit by 2011. This was to be used to invest across the whole network of Royal Mail, Post Office Ltd and Parcelforce. 85 Crown Post Offices were closed, 70 of which were sold to W H Smith. This followed a trial of six Post Office Outlets in W H Smith stores. W H Smith was expected to make up to £2.5 million extra in annual profit. 2,500 sub-Post Offices closed between 2008 and 2009. Redundancy packages were provided from public funding, (subpostmasters were paid over 20 months salary, roughly £65,000 each).

In November 2010, the government committed an additional £1.34 billion of funding to Post Office Ltd to enable it to modernise the network.

As part of the Postal Services Act 2011, Post Office Ltd became independent of Royal Mail Group on 1 April 2012.[7] The Act also contains the option for Post Office Ltd to become a mutual organisation in the future.  A 10-year inter-business agreement was signed between the two companies to allow Post Offices to continue issuing stamps and handling letters and parcels for Royal Mail.

There are currently around 12,000 Post Office branches across the UK, of which 373 are directly managed by Post Office Ltd (known as Crown Offices). The majority of other branches are either run by various franchise partners or local subpostmaster or operators (who may be members of the National Federation of SubPostmasters or the CWU Postmasters Branch), as "sub-postoffices".

[Haf]

Shipping costs really hurt, especially shipping heavy items over the pond. If I thing of average shipping costs for single slots about $150 I spend more than $1650 only on shipping last three months, maybe even more. Not included 19% customs on every items worth. But that's the way the cookie crumbles- I chose to collect brick heavy phones so I have to bite the bullet. After all I'm not sure if the postal service is making much profit with this but actually I don't care as it isn't making any difference to my.

Haf

[DavePEI]

Fact is, Canada Post over the past 17 years has been 100% profitable. During that time it has not been subsized one iota. 2012 was the first time that it failed to make a large profit, but it did show a a before-tax profit of $127 million dollars (Reference 2012 Canada Post Annual Report) which could have been far larger, and much of the reason for that was the construction of brand new automatic sorting centres and outfitting them with billions of dollars of new automatic sorting equipment. This was done with an eye towards maintaining profitability into the future, however, it is looking as though they may have over-spent, and negated the improvement in profit that they intended to make.

Over the past few years, thousands of employees have been cut from the rolls by attrition and other means across the country. Unlike in the U.S., Saturday mail delivery was eliminated on February 1, 1969. We have not had Saturday delivery since then. Large areas are being re-worked and changed over to group mail delivery to counter increased mail delivery destination demands.

So, at least in Canada, the postal corporation had been able to pay back to the Federal Government for the past 17 years. What will happen by year's end 2013 is anyone's guess.

They talk about expanding their parcel services, yet no mail service has increased in cost as much as it has. Lettermail amounts have decreased severely largely due to on-line delivery of bills and on-line banking. That was its former bread and butter. There must be an effort to reduce the cost of parcel delivery, or else Postal services will disappear.

A retired Postal employee.

[G-Man]

I have been following an auction for a 1917 Northern Electric catalogue, contemplating purchasing it so I could donate it to the TCI Library so it could be scanned.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200973240159?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1426.l2649

Then I saw that Canadian Post is charging over $30.00 on top of the winning bid, for shipping it to my location.

Even though I am disappointed, I do understand that they need to pay their own way and not expect government handouts in the future.

From what Dave has stated it appears that they are on the course towards self-sufficiency.

[dsk]

The postage are the reason of why I haven't got my self a good payphone.
The postage to Norway would be at least $150 and since thavaly are increased the customs want me to pay VAT and customs and a fee, so it is easy doubled again!

So I keep on telling myself "I do actually not want nor need a payphone!" But its a lie!

dsk