For the past 6 years DD has run a small online sewing supplies business. Many of the items she sells are quite small and light but some of her more popular items, like the wooden coat hangers used as the basis for making padded hangers are heavier and relatively low in value, other orders contain quite a number of items and are also relatively heavy. Today she posted a parcel of hangers for the first time since new postal rates came in It cost her £8.00 to send a package containing items she sold for £6.00 because when the rates went up RM also introduced the concept of large and small parcels and her parcel fell into the higher more expensive category
Returning home she investigated other ways of dispatching her goods, but as a small business the only alternative; cheaper, but still more expensive, meant a round trip of 10 miles to the 'local' agent of a carrier company. So she has decided to shut down her business because she says she can no longer operate it profitably.
The post office clerk, who knows her well, said she was not alone in the look of shock and horror, when told the new postal cost, nor was she the only person running a small business that felt the new rates would destroy their business.
It is not just her loss, many of the items she sold were not easy to find and her customers often said they had searched online and she was the only supplier they could find. They too will lose out.
So it is back to the High Street, she is now going to investigate running a stall at markets and craft fairs.
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