SHOPPERS face paying more this Christmas after the Royal Mail announced a big change to fees.
The service has announced that business account customers will be asked to pay an additional peak surcharge of 5p for letters and 10p for parcels.
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This will come into force on November 20 and end on January 7 – the peak time for Christmas deliveries.
Plus, they will also be hit by a 2p green surcharge from November 6.
While the surcharge won’t be charged to directly to consumers, there are concerns that they will end up footing the bill anyway as businesses look to up their prices to cover the extra cost.
Sarah Coles, personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “Online retailers are having to contend with rising prices on all sides, so they’re highly unlikely to take these extra charges on the chin.
“It’s going to be passed onto shoppers, who can expect to see the cost of Christmas keep on rising.”
It comes after Royal Mail announced that first class stamps will go up from £1.10 to £1.25 on October 2.
Andrew Hagger, personal finance expert at Moneycomms, said the possibility of additional costs is the “last thing hard pressed consumers need”.
The 2p green surcharge is applied by the Royal Mail to its business customers fund its decarbonisation measures.
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Products including Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Royal Mail Tracked 48 are subject to this charge.
Plus the 5p peak surcharge is applied to Royal Mail 24 and Royal Mail 48 large letters, Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Royal Mail Tracked 48 letterboxable products sent by business account holders.
While the following products will be hit with a 10p peak surcharge:
- Royal Mail 24
- Royal Mail 48 Parcels
- Royal Mail Tracked 24
- Royal Mail Tracked 48 Parcels
- Royal Mail Tracked Returns
- Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am, 1pm and end of the day Sunday
- Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “Christmas is our busiest time of year and we invest in thousands of additional staff, more vehicles and additional parcel sorting sites to manage around double the normal volumes of parcels.
“Other parcel carriers already apply a similar surcharge during the Christmas period.”
It comes after the Royal Mail ousted old-style stamps and replaced them with barcoded ones in July.
The business said the move would make letters more secure.
Anyone who still has these old-style stamps and uses them may have to pay a surcharge.
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