Australia Post again

Further to my previous post about this Government owned monopoly, I have since found an article in the West Australian about Australia Posts huge losses.

Where are they losing money? Not from Australian postage, in fact they're making bucketloads out of that, but not enough to cover their losses from processing overseas packages.

It seems we're all shopping online overseas (maybe because postage is cheaper?) and the postal service is inundated with all those parcels. To try to rectify this, AP has put in a submission to the Productivity Commission to change the rules governing international parcel handling costs. If they are successful, expect to see an extra charge passed on to you, the consumer, on the receival of an overseas package.

In the meantime, AP will just keep putting up the prices of domestic parcels to try to make up the shortfall. Which means, that Australian online shops are going to either lose customers to the overseas online shops or bear the brunt of the cost. Consumers will turn to overseas online shops because of the wider variety, often cheaper prices and, of course, the cheaper postage.

Here's an online article all about it. Read the last line, in particular.
Thanks, Australia Post, for making it difficult to run an online business because I live in the country.

Australia Post Hinders Online Businesses

As the title suggests, I believe that Australia Post is undermining Australian businesses that rely on online sales.

The cost of posting a parcel within Australia has risen 4 times in only 24 months. Each time it's a 10% increase.
The price of sending a small package, up to 250g,  now costs $5.00. Most packages I send come in at the 500g to 1kg range, which is now going to cost over $13.00 to send to the Eastern States and over $9.00 within WA.

I recently received a package from the US, some gorgeous push pins that I bought on Etsy. The cost of postage was $2.59 US, amounting to much the same in Aussie dollars. If I were to post the same package back to the US, it would cost me $7.70!!

If I were to buy my book club books from Dymocks Online, an Australian bookseller, it would cost around $40 for postage, if not more. If I buy the same books from the Book Depository in the UK, the postage is FREE.

Australia Post claims rising fuel costs, rising power costs and higher wages as their reasoning behind the increases. All businesses are coping with these rising costs, however, as a monopoly, Australia Post have more power than most to raise their costs without concern for lost business.


So, after just working out a flat rate for postage that wouldn't cost me too much to subsidise, I'm now going to have to increase the cost of postage once more. Postage will now cost $8.50, an increase of $1.00.  I'm not happy about it, but hope that my customers understand why I must increase the cost, which is still heavily subsidised. I don't charge for the packaging, which is an added cost that I am prepared to wear.

Skinflint products still represent great value and with a flat rate of postage, it's a good idea to order a bit more than you need or to add a couple of other products to try.