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Learn moreAustralia Post Price Increase for Business Mail to go ahead
Regulatory
23 June 2011
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has confirmed that it will not object to a price increase across a number of Australia Post’s monopoly business mail letter services. The ACCC has confirmed its earlier preliminary view that it should not object to Australia Post’s revised proposal.
Whilst the ACCC has given the go head to the price increase ACCC chairman, Graeme Samuel has said “Beyond this price notification, the current approach to setting prices, including the allocation of costs, needs to be re-examined given the environment of declining demand for traditional letter services. The ACCC and Australia Post have agreed to re-examining the current approach before any future major price notifications.”
Australia Post has a statutory monopoly over the delivery of letters weighing less than 250g, which cost no more than $2.40 to send.
Australia Post is proposing to increase the prices of business mail services, including PreSort services which provide discounts to wholesale bulk mail customers who sort and barcode mail prior to lodgement.
At the same time, Australia Post has made significant changes to its Off Peak PreSort letter services to try to make them more attractive to industry.
Key changes include:
- a reduction in the current delivery window of four business days to two.
- Better performance reporting
- A change to the Off Peak Indicia
In response to feedback from industry, including ADMA, Australia Post also revised down its proposed increase to Off Peak. The reduction of the increase was more than 50% for some categories. A reversion to a 6pm lodgement time rather than 12pm as originally proposed was also in direct response to industry feedback.
Increased prices now include:
- Small (PreSort) Regular letter (delivered in the state of lodgement) prices increase from 42.7 cents to 45.7 cents
- Small (PreSort) Off Peak letter (delivered in the state of lodgement) prices increaeses from 41.6 centre to 41.9 cents
