New postage costs and restrictions!?*%!

Just went into the Post Office to post some bits I sold in the classifieds and walked out with 2 of the packages.
Standard Parcel no longer exists, and they won't take any items longer than 61cm (which rules out a lot of stuff we sell on here, bars, forks, etc.) so to send some forks I sold for £50 they wanted £14 via Parcel Farce!
These changes are going to make selling cheapish stuff just not worth it :? If a pair of £20 bars cost £10 to post, who's going to bother.
Yes I could send via ParcelMonkey, but it means having to wait around all day....and there's no guarantee they will actually pick up.
Bad business move on the POs part IMO, as it'll push people to use 3rd party couriers for anything other than a letter as Parcel Force is very expensive, and no better than any other company.

Same here, had some bars and forks to post and Royal Mail had almost tripled their price overnight! Used "MyHermes" through Parcel2Go.com and dropped them off at a newsagent a few miles away. No queue, no fuss, free tracking too. Never entering a Post Office again.

http://www.parcel2go.com/

That's going to be a real pain...standard parcel was a good service. Most of the stuff I sent by it turned up pretty quickly.

I think I'll be using couriers more but do agree that selling older / cheaper stuff probably isn't worth it any more.

Ah, that explains it, I had the exact problem with my slam bars. Too long! £14 to post cruiser bars FFS I only boxed em to save damage,,,, yeah after parcel farce lost my frame for 14 days and then delivered it bashed out of the box they offered noting but books of freakin' stamps as not-compensation.

Yep parcel2go.com and Hermes at others are my go to by choice, apart from small packages...
Gah

Any other reports on My Hermes?

I've a drop-off centre just round from me, and could be convenient!

Not sure if this belongs here or in OT, so I'll leave it here for now.

I use the postal office for small things, GLS for forks, frames, wheels etc. Used to send forks and handlebars by post too, but not any more.

Yeah Hermes we're great so far. For about 6 quid, car brake calipers send to Newcastle, took, about a day and half, sat there in the morning on the desk. Was amazed. So far I like the service a lot, I just don't like taking services for granted.

Needs to go into OT. People need to know about this. I know the prices went up but didn't realise it was this bad.

Feel free to move it, but I felt it was bike related too. As a lot of us fund our 'habit' by selling bits and bobs, and complete (ha, are they ever?!) our projects throughout the classifieds.

There is a flip side though, I went to post a set of disc brakes the other day, in a large jiffy bag, packed out solid with bubble wrap, before the price changes it would have been £4.80 Now it's classed as a small parcel so first class was only £3 :shock:

The new and somewhat more complicated prices http://www.royalmail.com/sites/default/ ... il2013.pdf