postal costs of goods ro France

[hood]

I wonder if someone could explain to me why, apart from good old profiteering, businesses with mail order facilities such as Living France apply a surcharge to post to Europe when the actual costs are very little different or should be we being one postal grouping now. This especially applies to a business like Living France which purports to support U.K. citizens living in France and has a large customer base there.

[Punch]

I don't know much about postal costs from the UK, but I would assume there is a surchage from the Royal Mail for post to Europe which I assume LF just pass on to us.

I must say I was slightly jealous that everyone had received their subscription copy of LF way before us French residents receive ours.;-(

Paul

[Russethouse]

According to " International Postal Services for Business Users" post to Europe is over double the UK rate. ie 100 gr Uk = 41p 100gr Europe= 99p.

I believe there did USED to be an over all rate for letters but this was abolished quite a while ago

Hope that helps

Gay

[Mazan]

> I wonder if someone could
>explain to me why, apart
>from good old profiteering, businesses
>with mail order facilities such
>as Living France apply a
>surcharge to post to Europe
>when the actual costs are
>very little different or should
>be we being one postal
>grouping now.

Postal costs are different from country to country. The only EU standard rate is for a 20g letter which must cost the same to send to any point in the EU as to any point in the country of origin. So a UK 1st class stamp will get a letter to any point in the EU.

The UK is not a cheap country to post abroad from and indeed many UK companies do bulk overseas mailings from places like Holland and Denmark for the cost savings.

Even so, most UK companies do charge customers far more than the actual cost differences incurred when sending items abroad.

[Ex Forum Admin]

> I wonder if someone could
>explain to me why, apart
>from good old profiteering, businesses
>with mail order facilities such
>as Living France apply a
>surcharge to post to Europe
>when the actual costs are
>very little different or should
>be we being one postal
>grouping now.

Hi there,

The simple fact is that it costs us twice as much to post a copy of the magazine to Europe as it does to send it within the UK. The extra price for back issues and subscriptions to European destinations solely reflects the extra postage so I'm sorry to say that good old profiteering doesn't come into it.


Happy weekend,

Eleanor
Forum Admin