[tpicco]

Man I am so honked off... we print an annual magazine with a UK printer... now we are discussing postage for mailing it all over Europe... and though we were originally told "The Royal Mail (The UK’s main postal service) offers significant discounts on mailing of magazines if they have been pre-sorted into mailsort order, this is a service we can offer and although this is not a huge job I am sure all cost savings would be welcome."

Now they are charging us bloody 2.83 per issue! As the guy in our London office wrote "We have been mailing them from our London office, and at first class mail costs they cost 90p each within the U.K., and 2.63 to mail to continental Europe. So if we were mailing them first class the cost for the European mailing (approx. 1000 copies to the U.K. and 2000 to continental Europe) should not be more than about 6000 pounds. I assume we are not mailing first class, and that we should get some discount for a bulk mailing."

It was cheaper to mail it from the US last year! WTF?

And this is the latest prices he is offering:
Total database 3035 records
UK 1044 records
Europe - £2.83 each - 1987 records
ROW - 4 -records
Standard 2nd Class / 3 Days - £7001.62
Standard mailsort 3 / 7 Days - £6054.81

Is there anyone here from the UK that can clarify this for me?
And if we are being ripped off substantially, can anyone suggest a mailing house that could handle this for us?

I am so pissed off...

[art_director]

Wish I knew some mail houses in the UK to help you out. Sounds like a ripoff to me.

[tpicco]

they initially told me it would be 40p a copy... but I knew that was for the UK mailing only...

[tpicco]

Now they are telling me they are using a mailing house and the cost is postage & inkjetting and polybagging and they are only marking it up 5%...

[Nivag]

is this one of the printers i gave you details of?

[tpicco]

dunno... my memory sucks... did you suggest Wyndeham in Sussex?

I think next time I may go with MPC (magazine printing company)

[tpicco]

nope... just checked... you didn't suggest them... my client went with the allegedly cheaper quote... but the "hidden costs" are a suprise... perhaps this is the way it is done in the UK... ?

later:
I just spoke to the Royal mail... apparently the much ballyhooed "Bulk Discount" only applies to UK mail... and out of the 3000+ we are mailing, only 1,000 are UK addresses....

^%%$$^&(&**((*)(&&^&$%

[Nivag]

i think hidden costs seem to be in everywhere at the moment. it's difficult to get a straight price for the whole job.

I have heard of Wyndeham, but i don't think any of the places i work use them. i'll see if i can get a costing from one of the firms i work out.

as for the postage prices, at the start of the year Royal Mail lost their monopoly on UK deliveries. I know a lot of the big companies are using DHL and TNT for their bulk items that go out each month.

not sure how that's going to help you, but may get you a better price if you mention it.

more info here BBC NEWS | Business | Post service opens to competition