Small Businesses react to First Class Stamp Price Hike
UK’s Greeting Card Association members concerned Royal Mail is ignoring views of small and medium-sized businesses and their consumers
This month Royal Mail raised the price of a first class stamp from £1.35 to £1.65 – an inflation-busting 22 per cent increase that’s the fifth hike in less than three years.
A first class stamp is now almost twice the price of a second class stamp, which remains affordable at 85p because it has the protection of being pegged to inflation by regulator Ofcom.
And the UK’s Greeting Card Association which represents over 500 publishers, retailers, agents, specialist suppliers and distributors in an industry worth £1.5bn to the UK economy, said it feared the rise was part of a plan to kill off the more affordable second class stamp for good.
That’s because Ofcom and Royal Mail last month announced plans to chop the second class post down to three or even two days a week – and ending Saturday second class deliveries.
The GCA believes that move will seriously undermine consumer trust in the service, leaving the small businesses they represent fearing the service will be wound down – and if it is, it will leave them and the consumers they serve, with no option but to use an unregulated, high price first class stamp for important cards and letters that need to be delivered on time.
Owners of thriving online greeting card businesses are concerned about this.
David Falkner, the Director of Cardology in Surrey, is united with other GCA (Greeting Card Association) members and thousands of other local businesses across the UK who simply want a national postal service that remains national, reliable and affordable.
Cardology, a business founded in the family back bedroom in 2014, offers fresh and creative pop-up cards and prints from their innovative design studio based at Sutton Business Park in Wallington in Surrey.
The team of three; sisters Dipa Shah (Founder & E-Commerce Director), Kripa Shah (Founder & Design Director) and Kripa’s husband David Falkner (Founder & Trade Director) – combine their engineering and design backgrounds with an eye for fine detail to produce amazing 3D pop-up greetings cards and art prints with the wow factor.
David Falkner says "“It’s utterly bizarre the way Ofcom has approached the current review. They are obsessed with making their main objective to be the improvement of the Royal Mail’s bottom line. Everything else seems secondary. It’s like running the rail service and not caring that people travelling are missing their meetings or getting to their journeys on time, as long as the rail companies are making the money they need. Their priorities are all wrong. It needs a more measured approach.“