When did you last post a letter

Harry Palmr

So then the third price hike in the price of a standard stamp is on the way. The volume of standard rate mail has obviously fallen with the rise of IP based comms. I can't be sure when I last posted a letter.

Omackeral

Myself and my mate do this from time to time. It started as an experiment as we neither had ever sent a letter before and did it to see how long it took. It was actually nice to get and give written words and meant more than a simple text. We live maybe 45 miles apart so it's not that far but I still have all his letters and he has all mine. They're nice to look at every once in a while. The rest of my mates would think I'm weird if they knew.

failinis

Sent some forms off yesterday, but send a hand written letter about 3 weeks ago, and a postcard about 2 months ago.

Not too often.

Fluffy Cat 88

Today I posted a form to the IKC, probably post things about 10 times a year.

An Post aren't making much from me

The_Valeyard

Today.

DEFTLEFTHAND

half five this evening.

Ursus Horribilis

Yesterday but it was work related. Before that, October. A birthday card.

chocksaway

Over a year ago when I sold my car and had to send the log book off. Everything else can be scanned and emailed.

Odelay

Not a single one in over five years.

.red.

Posted 2 to Santa last week.

Del.Monte

I haven't sent that many personal letters recently but use the postal service for business letters, packages etc., and any jacking up of rates will be detrimental to the future of An Post. If you owned a corner shop and started to lose money would you raise your prices? Of course An Post look at cutting rather than developing services and perhaps dropping prices to gain business.

Also they go the time honoured route of semi-states and commission McKinsey & Co., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_%26_Company to do yet another expensive report - they must really love Ireland! Why not commission our frequently touted 'best educated' young people in Europe/World to come up with some ideas? Fat chance. :mad:

Atlantic Dawn

Last was about 2 months ago when dealing with a state agency, they are back in the 1980's as regards use of technology, I suppose being backward and inefficient keeps thousands of them in a job.

Grayson

I've sent off forms and stuff recently. I haven't written a letter in years. I created a thread about letter writing last year and no-one had written one in years.

BTW, I don't know what it's like here but in the US the postal service is busier than ever. The reason is that despite a drop in letter writing etc there is a massive increase in online purchasing. A lot of that uses USPS. I assume there's something similar happening here.

MilesMorales1

Yesterday. Christmas cards innit.

qo2cj1dsne8y4k

Yesterday and before that last Monday

IvyTheTerrible

I sent 90 handwritten letters this morning!
I'm an English teacher and my students have penpals in a high school in the U.S. It's so unusual for them to write letters that they are delighted when they get one.

learn_more

The last time I wrote and posted a personal letter was 1997.
Last time I wrote a personal postcard was 2005.

Capt'n Midnight

Grayson wrote: »

BTW, I don't know what it's like here but in the US the postal service is busier than ever. The reason is that despite a drop in letter writing etc there is a massive increase in online purchasing. A lot of that uses USPS. I assume there's something similar happening here.

Here's it been a disaster. Postal charges make it expensive to sell stuff. And lots of courier companies undercut An Post.

They've finally joined Parcel Wizard , Parcel Motel and Parcel Connect to provide a cheaper way to get stuff from the UK it's Address Pal.

Had they done this a few years ago they could have cleaned up.
For €3.50 they will take 20Kg from the UK to your local post office.
compare that to http://www.anpost.ie/AnPost/PostalRates/Standard+Post.htm

Jayop

Send a few things away every year, mostly car related. No problem with them charging a little more if it stops them closing post offices.

Capt'n Midnight

I get my monthly eflow statements by post even though I rarely use the toll bridge

Del.Monte

Jayop wrote: »

Send a few things away every year, mostly car related. No problem with them charging a little more if it stops them closing post offices.

There's a big problem with the charging more as they will lose more business and rest assured none of the 'theoretical increased revenue' will be used to save a single post office.

Jayop

Del.Monte wrote: »

There's a big problem with the charging more as they will lose more business and rest assured none of the 'theoretical increased revenue' will be used to save a single post office.

I don't think they will lose business by charging more for a letter as they are really the only show in town there. If they charge more for parcels then I'd agree with you.

Some really rough numbers here, but I would estimate that I get about 2/3 letters a week. Over a year say 120 but for the purpose of this to be conservative I'll say 60 so just over 1 letter per week. Probably every household in the country is similar. That's 1.5 million multiplied by 60 letters. Say they increase it by 20c a letter.

That gives an increase of 45 million euro. That's before you even look at B2B letters. That's a large sum of money given that they say they are making a 12/15m loss this year. It will easily cover the losses for a few years.

vicwatson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I get my monthly eflow statements by post even though I rarely use the toll bridge

Eh, that's not posting a letter :rolleyes:

Del.Monte

Jayop wrote: »

I don't think they will lose business by charging more for a letter as they are really the only show in town there. If they charge more for parcels then I'd agree with you.

Some really rough numbers here, but I would estimate that I get about 2/3 letters a week. Over a year say 120 but for the purpose of this to be conservative I'll say 60 so just over 1 letter per week. Probably every household in the country is similar. That's 1.5 million multiplied by 60 letters. Say they increase it by 20c a letter.

That gives an increase of 45 million euro. That's before you even look at B2B letters. That's a large sum of money given that they say they are making a 12/15m loss this year. It will easily cover the losses for a few years.

You may have a point, but invariably all the rates get jacked up anytime there's a price increase.

How about if An Post went back to using CIE rail and offering same day delivery services? They spent a fortune on modernising the mail depot adjoining Connolly and the rail distribution system only to abandon the whole thing and go to road distribution. Here in Enniscorthy they moved sorting and the postmen out of the main post office building to a gigantic new premises on the outskirts of town - largely empty from what I can see -nice and comfy for the staff but inconvenient for users. I imagine the same has been replicated countrywide.

Jayop

Del.Monte wrote: »

You may have a point, but invariably all the rates get jacked up anytime there's a price increase.

How about if An Post went back to using CIE rail and offering same day delivery services? They spent a fortune on modernising the mail depot adjoining Connolly and the rail distribution system only to abandon the whole thing and go to road distribution. Here in Enniscorthy they moved sorting and the postmen out of the main post office building to a gigantic new premises on the outskirts of town - largely empty from what I can see -nice and comfy for the staff but inconvenient for users. I imagine the same has been replicated countrywide.

I couldn't agree with you more about the prices of their other services. The logical thing to do if the figures are anything like those that I pulled from my hole above would be to use some of that money to push the prices of their parcel delivery down and really compete with the couriers.

Del.Monte

Since my previous post I have been battling with An Post and Amazon to find out what has happened to my parcels sent by the all singing, all dancing Amazon Prime service. The first package arrived in the Dublin Mail Centre on Monday 5th - delivery promised for the next day by Amazon and after finally getting a human in An Post today, I was informed that due to volumes it may be Monday 12th before it's delivered! This is no way to run a business and An Post deserve to lose their Amazon contract if this is the way that they are prepared to operate the service.