International Postage - For Mick P. inter alios.

Posted by: Adam Meredith on 10 February 2015

A minor the joy of returning to England has been the ability to buy items of low value from Amazon without the postage making the purchase uneconomical.

 

At present I can buy a £2.00 item from China or Hong Kong with postage included. A mere 3 weeks later a tatty jiffy bag will be carried up the stairs to my flat - ending a migration an Arctic Tern would envy. It will not be alone.

 

There is an international agency (UPU?) overseeing postal agreements.

 

I don't believe there is much balancing traffic of low value items and mail back to these countries.

 

How does the UK postal service recover the costs of delivering this increasing volume of foreign post?

 

Is the historic arrangement sufficiently flexible as to compensate for such an imbalance?

 

If it does not - isn't the post office (unwillingly) subsidising cheap imports over home suppliers? In addition to the tax which isn't paid.

Posted on: 10 February 2015 by Kevin-W

Not an answer to your question Adam, but I've given up selling on Amazon because the postage charges are ludicrously low - it usually doesn't cover the cost of postage, even within the UK. The low charges are great for the buyer, not so good for the seller...

Posted on: 11 February 2015 by Mick P

Adam

 

I left the RM 11 years ago, so I may well be out of date.

 

When I was there, you paid for delivery in the form of a stamp and that was income for the originating country.  The receiving country had to make the final half of the delivery for nothing. So in that sense, one country subsidises the other.  The counter argument being that it was swings and round a bouts as mail goes everywhere.  For every letter that goes out, one comes back in.

 

Also the cost of administration for collecting the fees for the unpaid service would outstrip what you would collect in postage and also you would have to verify the costs of the outgoing mail.

 

Therefore everyone agreed, one country subsidises the other and keep your fingers crossed that it balances out.

 

With recent improvement in technology, It may have changed but I honestly don't know.

 

Regards

 

Mick