Buying a single stamp from the post office - Germany

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Yeti, you're having us on, now.

Never look at the news?

The market in postal services all over Europe is getting more and more liberal.
The limit by weight and price below which the post offices enjoy a monopoly is sinking and IIRC that monopoly will dissappear totally in a couple of years time.

So in theory ANYONE can set up a postal scheme.

In Sweden IIRC there already mini rival post systems working in the major cities and of course in business stuff goes with UPS, FedEx etc etc.

But from a profit point of view, individually selling single stamps for 55 cents, collecting them from various locations, sorting them and delivering them to ANY domestic address (no matter how remote) for a flat fee isn't attractive.

That is why DP, like Britain's Royal Mail and I guess 101 other postal organisations are reducing socially welcome but costly / non-profitable services. The selling of single stamps looks like the basic function of a post ffice but falls into that category. Similarly there was a mass thinning out of post boxes a couple of years ago. Lucky I still pass one on the way to my local.

Slanderous accusation. Have you ever known Yeti not be serious?

Yeah, you had to send in a singly-stamped selfaddressed envelope to counter 7.5 of your local post office ?

Before the 12.12.2005, I think it was.

(Moi, unserious ? Never !)

I'd like to know when stamp automats stopped being about the convenience of the customer and started being about the convenience of the Post?

I know, I know, silly question, this being the Poor Customer Service Capitol of the World, but really. This is getting ridiculous.

At the very least, if selling stamps via automat is more cost-effective for the Post (and I doubt that it is), then stamps at the automat should cost less than buying one from the counter.

According to post office branch Unsöldstrasse you are allowed to use them through the 31st Jan. instead of € 1.45.

I have had them handed to me before, but I had the letter/s on me. It has to do with them weighing the letter and the machine spitting out the amount.

Sheez. Had me worried there for a moment..

I agree that there's no money to be made on single letter delivery and probably no private company would want to do it. Which is why I assumed it was and will remain a service provided by the state. For the communal good, and all that sort of stuff...

Yes, I was aware of the liberalisation, but didn't expect that the monopoly would disappear for standard letters.

So, does die Post currently receive subsidies from the government for providing this service (stamp sales and single letter delivery)?

If the market is to be totally liberalised, and no subsidies are provided, this could mean the end to the service as we currently know it. I'm not sure how desirable this is, or how it would even work. I mean, if you have to go to the post office to pick up your post, how do you know you have post. At present the postman posts a receipt in my mailbox if I miss a parcel delivery. Would be funny if you got a receipt in your mail box saying you had to collect a letter

I suppose it could be built in to the conditions of a licence to operate a postal service that single letters must still be accepted and delivered, which would obviously reduce the attractiveness of such a licence.

Well Cinzia, ATMS have long stopped being about the convenience of the bank customer, it is the same principle.

Deutsche Post AG is not subsidised by the government, it operates as a private company although it is wholly owned FOR THE MOMENT by the federal government. They are looking at an at least partial flotation in 2008 (?) which means getting costs DOWN and profits UP. that is why they have this policy.

There is a trade off to be made becaue single letter delivery to all adreses is not attractive for a business.

Damn my addle-brained co-worker (not the garlic-sensitive one, the other one). She now says that you have to have them stick 1cent stamps on the letters at the PO. Not what she said last week.

Monkstown, if it truly was a free-enterprise company, you would be able to buy stamps at Walmart for 30% cheaper and use them to mail your letter. Whether you buy one, two or 78.

Yeah, what I said.

In a true free market Wal-mart could indeed charge what it liked for its own service at 30% less.
But 55 cents is already at best a break even price, there's loss leaders but...

A discount at another stamp outlet is currently not legally possible but they do steer you by for example offering you the "bonus" of single stamps at a machine. Similarly I don't get a "discount" if I make a bank transfer via a service terminal but it costs me 75 cents in the bank to do it on paper.