Royal Mail Fuel Surcharge hike

Royal Mail have announced that from Monday the 14th of March they will be increasing the fuel surcharge from 4.0% to 6.0% for all their UK domestic contract services. There is no change to the fuel surcharge for Royal Mail International services.

Royal Mail Fuel Surcharges are applicable to the following services when purchased by account customers (they don’t apply to non- contract or consumers services)

• Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am and 1pm
• Royal Mail Tracked 24 and 48
• Royal Mail 24 and 48
• Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns
• Royal Mail Tracked Returns and Mail Order Returns

This should really come as no surprise with fuel prices at the pumps breaking the £1.50 a litre barrier and in some places as high as £1.70, and likely to stay high for the foreseeable future, driven in part by already high prices and escalated further by the incredibly sad situation in Ukraine.

If you watched BBC Breakfast today, you may have seen Diamond Logistic’s Kate Lester talking about the same issue and warning of rising prices across the entire delivery and fulfilment sector as these fuel surcharge rises won’t be limited to Royal Mail. Everyone who runs a vehicle to transport your goods or deliver them to consumers or B2B customers will be impacted.

With inflation already at it’s highest for many years, the Russian invasion of Ukraine will have the effect of driving prices even higher with not only petrol impacted, but also gas and electric fuel costs sky-rocketing to even higher levels than the new energy price cap due to come into effect on the 1st of April. Sadly, the 1st of October could see the average household fuel bill rocket to well over £3,000 having already risen by £693 from £1,277 to £1,971 this April.

You may well be forced to adjust your selling prices to take into account the increased costs to your business. With the onslaught of additional costs at some point it will simply be impossible to maintain prices and remain profitable.