Post Office reorganisation threatens jewellery trade

COMMENT -

Everything is being done to favour the big stores.  Free parking in out-of-town shopping centres, while town centre shops have to cope with rising rates and parking charges.

Now they're hunting internet shoppers and independents who depend on small deliveries from suppliers and don't run their own fleets of trucks.  It's the only way to stop them - make postal charges so high that it's not economic to ship small orders any longer.

That's their plan, but will it work?  Probably not.  Suppliers will always find a way to get round the blockages and hurdles put in our way.  Absorbing postal charges will be necessary, but the reach of the internet, whether business to business as we prefer at Curteis, or direct to the public, as more jewellers are either doing or thinking of doing, is unstoppable.

BRUSSELS PLOTS 'EU-WIDE' PARCEL SERVICE

What British mail vans could soon look like if the European Commission gets its way

Sunday November 25,2012

By Geoff Ho

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THE cost of sending a package in theUK is set to shoot up under controversial European Commission proposals.

Its internal market commissioner Michel Barnier is poised to launch a consultation into the state of Europe’s delivery market which will also look at costs to consumers.

It is being hailed as a first step towards creating an EU-wide integrated parcel delivery market.

Barnier is expected to say that logistics groups are not providing a basic, reliable and affordable international package service for consumers.

They fear he will try to cap their charge to customers for delivering overseas packages and make the business unprofitable. Logistics group say they would then have to hike domestic charges to recoup the money lost on their international services.

An industry source said: “If the EC forces the cost of international parcel delivery, say you’re sending a package from London to Paris, to non-economic levels, delivery groups will have to make for up that and it’ll be through the domestic audience.

Under these plans it could cost more to send something to Edinburgh than to Paris

An industry source

“Charges should reflect the cost of international transit. We don’t want the EC to get us to the point where it costs more to send something to Edinburgh than it does to Paris.”