A Royal Fit at Royal Mail!

Not sure Drama Becomes Me or the other way around (loosely borrowed from the movie title Death Becomes Her)!

There is no surprise that the international postage is outrageously expensive, but this is another level.

Last Friday, I was going to send my books to my good friend Pam in New York (my first U.S. customer) via the Royal Mail. RoyalMail

My book weighs 124g and for printed matters under 250g it is a flat rate of 4.75 pounds.

And now “wearing a new hat” as a savvy small business owner (my small book is my business), I put 2 books in the parcel which accounted for 248g.

Then I added 6 promotional postcards to the parcel.

I went to the post office holding my head high thinking how smart I was with this shipping cost minimization.  I put one parcel on the scale and it was 251g.  The counter staff said 7.45 pounds and for some reason, (you see , I may have hearing problem :>), I thought she said 4.75 pounds which was what I had expected. She put the stamps on three parcels.  When it was time to pay, she said a total of 22.35 pounds.  I questioned why and she said 7.45 pounds each and you saw it was 251g each.  Between 251g and 500g, the postage is 7.45 pounds.  Essentially, I was asked to pay 2.7 pounds for 1g!  I recomposed myself and told her politely to REMOVE the stamps from the parcels.  I have changed my mind.  Needlessly to say, I could see steam come up of her head and she furiously (yet carefully) peeled off the stamps (one by one).  I went home and repacked the parcels.  I went back to the same post office this morning and tactfully avoided her (when I saw that it was my turn to her counter, I “suddenly” recalled that I needed to check some packing materials and re-joined the queue 2 seconds later).

Learned from last Friday’s experience,  I left the parcel open (with 2 books inside) and put my promotional postcards into it, ONE at a time.  I actually did not see the people behind me rolling their eyes because I don’t have eyes on my back :>.

Guess what the optimal number is?

The answer is 2 books with 4 postcards in the parcel (with some of “bubbles” of the bubble wrap BURST for weight reduction!)

Yes, I know.  Welcome to the new world of “poor” entrepreneurs – every pence counts, my friend :>  I am not ashamed!