Australia Post have hit some hard times and now they’re sending out letters about letters and how much those letters are costing them. If that isn’t boggling enough, there are some new changes to Australia Post that you should be aware of.
It’s no secret that the way we send and receive mail is changing – it has to. In the latest nationwide letter from our main postal service, Australia Post, they want to remind customers that they know what they’re doing…they’ve been in the post game for over 200 years and maintain over 4,000 post offices. They assure those who read their letter that the new changes to their service are only happening because of a monumental drop in revenue: they lost $1.5 billion in the past six years due to a 33 per cent drop in the amount of mail circulating the country.
“Australia Post will remain at the heart of communities – helping everyone, everywhere”, they said. So what is changing and how does it affect the average over 60 in Australia?
There’ll be a new non-urgent ‘Regular’ letters service that will take two days minimum to arrive to the recipient so that a ‘Priority’ service can take over. Essentially, if you want your letter to arrive at the normal speed it does now, you’d select ‘Priority’ and pay extra for it, or if you didn’t mind when it arrived, or planned for a delay, you could just go with the standard ‘Regular’ service. These two new services will run five days a week, and Express Post next business day delivery will run six days a week within the network
According to Australia Post, Australia has the cheapest basic stamp price in the developed world. And in order to maintain service, senders of mail need to pay the true cost of this service. They want to set the record straight about why they’re increasing pricing, and want to make it crystal clear that this is not for profit. “We only want to be able to recover our costs, so we can fund our Post Offices and delivery network”.
Stamps are currently 70 cents each but are set to increase to $1 – Australia Post has confirmed that subject to ACCC review it will seek to increase the Basic Postage Rate. However eligible concession card holders can join MyPost for free and purchase stamps at 60 cents (a rate which is frozen at 2010 levels).
How to apply for MyPost
Eligibility
Registration
Receive stamp concessions
Australia Post wants to hear feedback from the community about the changes to the stamp price and the introduction of Regular and Priority services. You can have your say here.
Tell us today, what do you think of the changes to Australia Post? Have you signed up to MyPost? How often do you send letters?