Monday, March 31, 2008

More on the monopoly that is NZ Post

I sent the last blog entry to the CE of NZ Post in the form of an e-mail. I received a reply which contained the following;

I understand your reaction to the price increase. It is
never desireable or easy to be raising prices particularly in a
competitive market.... The fact is you have choices and we want you to continue to do business with us.


I am not happy with this response and have sent the following to newspapers;

Dear Editor

Once again the consumer is being held ransom by an effective monopoly. A couple of months ago it was ACC and their premium hikes . Now NZ Post has raised the cost of sending an A4 envelope by a breathtaking fifty percent. But I am assured by their CE , John Allen, that "the fact is you have choices" in a "competitive market".

The only fact is that NZ Post still dominates and accounts for 95 percent of the letters market. According to the Consumer Postal Council, "New Zealand Post profits remain respectable". It returns 43 percent of its surplus to the government. My choice is to pass on the increase to my customers, absorb it or shut up shop. The first would probably result in the last.

I am left with the second option - watching more of my income go into government coffers.

2 comments:

Whaleoil said...

Lindsay, your 50% increase is actually quite light.

We run a home based Trademe business and other prices have sky rocketed.

it is burning up the boards at present and plenty of other professional traders I know are simply going to ditch NZ Post as a delivery mechanism.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Community/MessageBoard/Messages.aspx?id=25174933&threadid=25174933

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Whaleoil, You can ditch them for parcels but not letters. Why not make some noise.

The CE e-mail address is john.allen@nzpost.co.nz

and write to the papers

I rang talk back about it yesterday and a following caller said his particular postal charge had risen 400 percent! It's unjustifiable.