Prices Update

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You will probably be aware that postal prices have been increasing at a very high rate over the last few years and this, coupled with smaller increases in the cost of packing and packaging materials, has forced our costs up even though the cost of magnetic sheet has remained reasonably stable.

To begin with we were able to offset some of the costs by buying in bulk but we have pretty well reached the limit on any savings from doing that (though increased sales of Flex-o-Metal have now allowed us to buy in the largest roll available and so drop the price of that product a little).

We did have to increase prices on magnetic products by around 8% in 2011 and had hoped to avoid any further price rises until 2012 at the earliest but the huge increase of 10-13% in postal rates in April 2011 made us think again and prices had to rise again in September. Trying to build an element of 'future proofing' into price rises so that we didn't have to react immediately to the April price rise failed and profits suffered even though sales continued to grow steadily.

Postage on basing orders currently varies from about 18% to 36% of what you pay for a pack and so annual increases of the size coming in April 2012 are going to wipe out our profit margin if we don't react in some way.

Each round of increases seems to hit different packet sizes more than others but the April 2012 increase also shifts the price bands so that small packets up to 750g are now all the same price, which makes single pack orders VERY expensive if they can't go by the Large Letter rate.

From now on all orders that possibly can will go at Large Letter rate. This means having to change the way we pack orders and entails purchasing a wider range of bags and boxes to make this possible. Some of these costs should be offset by using a cheaper postage rate that (hopefully) won't rise as much in the future.

We have re-structured the pack contents to better reflect the new postal price bands and customer buying patterns. Instead of a fixed set of pack prices across the whole range of base sizes we went for a somewhat more flexible pricing pattern to make best use of the weight bands so that our customers continue to get the best value we can manage.

European packs have been restructured differently to UK packs because the weight bands are set at different levels but, as with the UK packs, I have tried to pack as many bases into a weight so that as little as possible of the cost of postage is wasted. I won't pretend that these are perfectly optimised but they should offer a slightly better deal than previous packs would have done.

The April 2012 prices to European addresses have leap up far more than UK prices (by over 80% in some cases) and the weight bands have changed for the 3rd year in a row. I am afraid that my European customers will get a shock when they see the new prices but, as I did last year, I have re-worked the pack sizes to get the best value from the new weight bands. The average increase is about 20% but smaller packs will go up by the most.

It is now even more likely that European customers will get a better deal by using the Custom Order method if they need more than a pack or two. That way I can optimise postage and you will get exactly what you need without the potential wastage from buying whole packs.

Base packs increased in September 2011 by an average of 4% to UK customers but sheet materials stayed the same to UK addresses with only a limited increase for those to European addresses.

Prices and postal supplements on all other products will increase by the increase in postage since April 2011. This still means that postage supplements will have a hefty increase for customers outside the UK but stay the same for UK customers as I will now be sending all products 2nd class, not an option I have for those outside the UK unfortunately.