It has been closing post offices and reducing counter services with a vengeance, and recently ‘improved’ mail deliveries by replacing our traditional two daily deliveries with just one. So people in Britain don’t really need any more reasons to dislike the organisation that calls itself Royal Mail.
But you know what? It keeps on giving us new reasons anyway. The latest, due to come into force in a week’s time, is the new system of charging for letters based on the size as well as the weight of the envelope.
By now, all British households will have received one of the Royal Mail’s smartly designed, fold-out poster-style guides to the new rates. Careful scrutiny of this document reveals that the new system will not affect you at all — if you’re a granny sending someone a birthday gift of a Ten Pound note wrapped in a single sheet of writing paper and tucked into one of those special miniature envelopes sold by secret shops that only grannies know about.
As for the rest of us: it looks like we’re f•••ed. Especially businesses which tend to have to send slightly bulkier than average, though still lightweight, letter-size packages, or documents that can’t be folded and have to be sent in full-size A4 envelopes.
One group hard-hit by this will be mail-order hosiery fans, according to the latest mailout from Stockings HQ. SHQ, if you don’t already know, is a specialist online retailer of quality stockings of all kinds, and a particularly good source of proper vintage-style fully fashioned nylons. So it cannot have pleased David Bradwell, the affable owner of this friendly and efficient business, to have to announce to his customers last week that, because hosiery is light but the packaging can be bulky, most of the parcels SHQ send will now be classed as packets — which, needless to say, will cost more.
“Unfortunately,” he explains, “packets are bearing the brunt of the price rises. As an example, a 150g packet will cost 87 percent more to send under the new system. A 250g packet will cost 72 percent more.” So, the cost to Stockings HQ of posting their smaller mailings will almost double overnight.
Impressively though, Bradwell’s immediate response was to make his customers a free delivery offer — the last one before his mailing costs become, to use his own words, “excruciatingly expensive”. He offered free delivery on all orders of any value to any country all through the weekend, up until 11am UK time today.
I wonder about the timing though. I just hope for his sake that someone hasn’t decided that airmailed hosiery constitutes the same security risk as baby milk and toothpaste.
Above: Gerbe Carnations — unquestionably the most luxurious fully fashioned stockings you can buy, according to David Bradwell — are one of Stocking HQ’s big sellers at £18.95 (plus postage, needless to say)
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