Businesses may look beyond print after PiP hikes postal costs

Royal Mail's Pricing in Proportion (PiP) scheme has pushed up postal bills, paving the way for businesses to consider direct marketing options outside print.

According to a survey by MarketingFile, nearly half (44%) of responses reported an increase in direct mail costs. Just 16% of the 404 responses reported a decrease in costs and the remaining 40% reported no change.

Office mail costs were the worst affected: 63% said costs had increased, with 25% staying about the same.

Direct Marketing Association head of postal affairs Alex Walsh told printweek.com that businesses may respond to the increased costs by looking to other means.

"[As a company], you have a limited amount of control. If you find that costs are going up, then you have the choice to change the format in which your mail is sent or maybe even look at other forms of communication altogether," he said.

"If there is a cheaper way of going about it, then often these decisions will have to be made."

Walsh said that despite PiP having been in operation for a year now, many companies might not have been in a position to review communication strategies until now, because escalating postal costs due to PiP may not become apparent until they publish their full-year accounts.

Walsh added: "I think companies that don't monitor their post costs will have a gradual wake-up call. It's not always at the top of the agenda to consider changing – it's easier to tick the same box each time.

"It seems that there is a vast number of companies where post isn't a major part of day-to-day business [that] have yet to appreciate the subtleties of proportion pricing."

Other firms may have had material pre-printed and would consider it uneconomic to rerun print jobs in order to comply with PiP restrictions. Walsh said the drop-off in the use of C4 size envelopes hadn't been as large as Royal Mail originally predicted.

"People have either been paying more without realising or companies are likely to have had a supply of printed envelopes in this format and are prepared to still use them."
Source: printweek