Will postage prices eventually kill off the retro market?

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@keropi

Yeah, me and my girlfriend stayed in Parga, but we rented a car and had a full day in Ioannina.
Just chillin in coffee shops, browsing the stores and checking out the museums in the old turkish fortification. It was nice, and i love to drive on the A2.
 
Same thing here.. no alternative to the Post Office. If you want to go DHL/EMS/UPS, they give you a quote that makes your head spin.

Anything under 2kg is still quite reasonable, especially if it's not sent via airmail. I now send most of my stuff within Europe via surface registered because it's cheaper than airmail. What's a few days more compared to euros saved?

The post offices here are starting to look like petrol stations. You can buy toys, books, candles, even sweets! I mean what's next? Bread and milk over the counter?
 
Half-Saint said:
The post offices here are starting to look like petrol stations. You can buy toys, books, candles, even sweets! I mean what's next? Bread and milk over the counter?
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Here in Norway they have closed down everyone but the biggest postal offices, and all parcels is delivered through .. grocery stores. So yes, here in norway you can pick up your parcels and buy bread and milk at the same time.
 
also In Italy

also In Italy

same here, they started to add all kinds of cra....ehm products to the post offices so that people waiting in line could buy books and some useless stuff.
 
International postage certainly doesn't hep sales one bit. I imagine most of the trading with more common stuff here is done within the UK because it's cheaper than buying from the rest of Europe. I can't sell an 8€ AGP card for what it's worth simply because it would cost 5€ just to ship it to the buyer! This automatically puts me at a disadvantage compared to UK sellers, for example.
 
If I go to my local Royal Mail Post Office and ask for the cost to send a parcel to somewhere in the UK, I am usually told it is £x by Royal Mail. However I noticed after checking online that the PO also offer parcel delivery from other parcel moving companies e.g. Parcel Force and this can often be cheaper than Royal Mail. A bit naughty of the PO not to make people aware of cheaper services in favour of selling its own.
 
tbtorro said:
Today I went to the post office to check the price to send a 5kg package inside the EU, and the 'cheapest' method costs a whopping €38 ! :wooha:

I remember buying a Macintosh back in 2007, and paid $56 for shipping from USA, and that was nearly 20Kg.
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International prices up to the weight of 2kg are classed as a small parcel (cheaper). Anything over that is a large parcel and therefore more expensive.
 
Ed.D said:
..I noticed after checking online that the PO also offer parcel delivery from other parcel moving companies e.g. Parcel Force and this can often be cheaper than Royal Mail. A bit naughty of the PO not to make people aware of cheaper services in favour of selling its own.
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You do realise that Parcel Force is part of the same Royal Mail group as Post Office Counters don't you? However Parcel Force is a separate business within the Royal Mail group. Prices vary between Post Office and Parcel Force due to the nature of the 2 business operations. One is geared towards smaller item postman deliveries, and the other towards larger bulk parcel deliveries, so their pricing structures reflect this difference.

And why does a company need to divulge the competitions prices? If all companies had to inform customers that all of their products and services were cheaper elsewhere they would all quickly find themselves going bankrupt.
 
Harrison said:
...You do realise that Parcel Force is part of the same Royal Mail group as Post Office Counters don't you? However Parcel Force is a separate business within the Royal Mail group.
And why does a company need to divulge the competitions prices? If all companies had to inform customers that all of their products and services were cheaper elsewhere they would all quickly find themselves going bankrupt.
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Hi Harrison,

You kind of answered your own question there my friend. If RM is an umbrella company or part of the same group, why bother having Parcelforce as a service in the same group, but then consider it a competitor, if they aren't going to offer it equally alongside their own services? Doesn't seem logical. :huh: If there was a clear line between the PO offering large parcel deliveries only e.g. above 10Kgs and Parcel Force did everything below 10Kgs I could understand it.

My concern is, if I go to a PO to send a parcel then I should at least be made aware of the different services available to me.

Regards.
 
I never use Royal Mail anymore, because the guy who runs my local post office is a total :censored:
He hates his job & his life, he is a know it all & spends his life looking for arguments!
I know people who actually travel miles out of their way to avoid using his post office.
If you dare to take a parcel in for posting, he will tut & then shout "more ebay crap" all over the post office to make you feel embarrassed!
He once told me that all the staffs time is being taken up with eBay parcels & it costs him money,which makes no sense because any staff are on a fixed rate wage, so if they sat there twiddling their thumbs they will receive minimum wage, & if they spend all day doing parcels they will still receive minimum wage!
He is a clown!
He has now started overcharging for parcels to put people off.

I use collect+ or parcel2go, the post office can't compete with these on customer service or price, so I guess in the UK at least we have quite a few options for postage but by the looks of it the rest of Europe have some issues because of a lack of competition.
Postage won't kill the retro games market it will just drive up the prices.
 
you+cant+polish+a+turd.jpg
 
Dont know about the retro market in general, but I know it affects me.

There are countries I dont buy from anymore due to the insane post prices (like USA) and unfortunately, many of the items I'm after are mostly sold from these countries :(

My only hope is to find someone to trade with, but that happens very rarely.
 
What retro market? :P

Seems that nowadays you can only sell stuff that's dirt cheap or hard to find...
 
In the US shipping is not as cheap as it used to be but what can you do. There is also not a lot of competition either. Which is weird since it is such a large market.

USPS: Parcel Select is relatively cheap but that is a service that is only available to companies. Standard Mail is the new regular economy which is still OK. Library Mail (only sent to libraries) and Media Mail (books / software) are really cheap. First Class / Priority are really expensive.

UPS: Ground is relatively cheap but sometimes very slow. Fortunately I live near NYC so everything get's here really fast. I guess there is a lot of volume so even "cheap" parcels are bunched with faster service levels I assume. The same applies to mail from the EU and otherwise: there are lots of planes that come here daily so that speeds it up.

FedEx: Ground: same as UPS Ground really.

DHL: after the Great Recession they pulled out of the US market except for international shipping.

TNT: after the Great Recession they pulled out of the US market except for international shipping.

uShip: never used it and is not offered on eBay.

Greyhound: never used it and is not offered on eBay.

Obviously shipping will continue to increase in price so less valuable items will be less likely to be sold over time. :whistle:

Usually I buy stuff off eBay and shipping varies. Usually $20 to 50 for a desktop PC (no monitor). Usually $4 - 12 for other packages.
 
The USPS Media Mail section of the code still allows for diskettes to be mailed:

Section 4.0, item i:
i. Computer-readable media containing prerecorded information and guides or scripts prepared solely for use with such media.
http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/173.htm

I have to ask them to take out the Domestic Mail Manual sometimes when I ship diskettes to force them to send it Media Mail. :wooha:
 
Don't use the post office use a comparison site like parcel2go





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Collz69 said:
I never use Royal Mail anymore, because the guy who runs my local post office is a total :censored:
He hates his job & his life, he is a know it all & spends his life looking for arguments!
I know people who actually travel miles out of their way to avoid using his post office.
If you dare to take a parcel in for posting, he will tut & then shout "more ebay crap" all over the post office to make you feel embarrassed!
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Just teach your dog to leave a 'parcel' on the front door of said post office. Anyway you know his name and where he works, can't you just mail him a 'customised' jack in the box or an enormous box containing nothing but those annoying styrofoam beads. Those 409 reverse scam sites contain lots of ideas for exciting gift ideas.
 
Postage prices put me off a lot of items so I can imagine it does others too. Lets face it, it's £2.60 second or 3 quid first class to send a big box game, it's got to be the reason there's lots of games just go unsold. Same goes for other platforms too, I have loads of ps1 games which will go first at 1.40 ish if im willing to risk it getting cracked in a jiffy bag, or its 2.60 in a box which is crazy. I use UPS for heavy items as they're fully tracked, and 24 hr service and never had a problem all for 7.99, compare that to pf which would be 18 or so. At the risk of breaking the rules here, and I know there's traders here too but I dont mean all them, but I find people on eBay with thousands of retro items in stock all at stupid buy it now prices damage the retro market more. Effectively holding items at ransom for ages, it'sa then the one person willing to pay such daft prices that allows them to do so. For me only the most rarest of games should go for 25+, yet there's everyday games being listed as "super rare!" which on bids only make a couple of bids.

Anyway sorry about that! Yes postage withing the uk for items over 2.5mm depth is a ripp off full stop for me. I hope I havnt broken the rules its just my point is, and surely since we're all collectors and feel original software should be looked after and appreciated, that many items are in the wrong hands and that damages the market far more. Again if I have broken rules sorry but surely we all feel this and it needs to be said, especially here amongst honest collectors who treasure items for their place in computing history and not as a £ sign.
 
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