The Irish national postal service, An Post, has announced its pricing changes for 2018. They’re effective from April 4th.
There will be no increase in standard stamp price of €1 and no increase to standard parcel prices either. The international standard rate will increase from €1.35 to €1.50 and meter prices will increase from 90c to 95c for standard letters. You can digest the full changes on the An Post website here. There are several PDFs linked from that page with all the info.
The standard stamp price will not increase from the €1 price set in 2017 because mail volume reductions were less than anticipated. These better-than-expected mail volumes, combined with the reduction of over 300 staff across the business as part of cost cutting, has enabled An Post to maintain the standard rate.
Standard parcel rates will also be unchanged (although there are some increases in specialised service rates and at the low volume 0.5kg–1kg national band). Parcel volumes grew by 30% in 2017 due to increasing ecommerce and the re-launch of An Post’s parcel service with delivery on Saturdays and evenings and later acceptance times for businesses.
The international standard letter rate will increase from €1.35 to €1.50 because they say the organisation faces “continuous unit cost inflation from reduced volumes. An Post’s new rate of €1.50 is well below the EU15 average international letter rate of €1.68. Rates for business mail will increase on average by 10% for 2018.” Charges for other services such as Admailer.ie, Publicity Post, Reach+, Publications, Passport Express and MailMinder will be unchanged in 2018.
2017 saw a major improvement in An Post’s difficult financial position resulting from the price increase last April, large headcount reductions and the successful re-launch of the parcel business. An Post’s strategy is working well but the pressure needs to be maintained as the business offsets the impacts of e-substitution on mail volumes while refocusing the business on e-commerce. I am pleased that the better financial position means prices for standard letters and parcels need not be increased this year. The business has to work even harder in 2018 to deliver efficiencies, to continue implementing fair pricing and to launch new services.
– David McRedmond, CEO, An Post
