In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes
International postage isn't calculated just by adding up the different rates in different countries though.
In essence, what happens is that if country A sends more mail (by weight) to country B it pays a per kg charge for the excess. (of course in reality it's got more complicated than that, and various countries have negotiated different arrangements etc. but the principle still holds)
Rather less than they should be, sometimes. There's been a long thread on a Pistonheads forum alleging that a well-known ebay seller was taking advantage of RM's less than 100% checking by sending more items, and of greater weight, than they declared to RM. It is even suggested that the seller had "influenced" RM staff to turn a blind eye.
This may all be malicious fabrication, of course, but the seller has stopped trading and is said to be under investigation by RM, HMRC, and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh.
Others have suggested that, for a new business, it's a sound investment of a few hundred quid to sell items at a loss to get a rapid high ebay feedback rating.
I have bought books for 1p from Amazon registered sellers. But they always add on the full postage, usually a few pounds (as you'd expect). They have to do that.
Three points:
1) if you sell stuff cheap, you need to sell a lot of them to have a viable business, so even a small business may produce enough volume to be able to benefit from Royal Mail volume prices.2) Some products, such as printer ink cartridges, normally sell as sets, so the per item price may not cover the cost of posting one item, but the price of the set will. It is probably easier in such cases to take a hit on the odd time that somebody orders just one.
3) The people sending the goods may not be the ones you are ordering from. It is quite normal for suppliers to send stuff out direct to their customers' customers, often using delivery notes supplied by the customer. Hence the apparent size of the business you are buying from may not bear any resemblance to the size of the people who have a contract with Royal Mail.Probably, the seller has, but then who has not used a post paid reply envelope with a label over the original address? Brian
That's a new one on me. What will the criminal classes think of next? :-)
On 06/03/16 09:28, Nightjar 3) The people sending the goods may not be the ones you are ordering
This is called drop shipping, and some big online sellers make it very clear that it is a service that they offer.
Even re-using an unfranked stamp is illegal, although I doubt there are many/any prosecutions.
Cheers
Rape and a bit of shoplifting?
There are several countries where it costs less to send an airmail letter to the UK than it does to post the same letter within the UK.
For example, a letter weighing up to 20g can be sent airmail from Hong Kong for HK$3.70 (about 34p). The minimum cost of sending even a 2nd class letter in the UK is 54p, and for 1st class it's 63p.
In my experience, a letter sent from Hong Kong to the UK is normally delivered in about 3 to 5 days.
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