As the 2021 – 2022 financial tax year comes to an end, it is time to take a look at how our mailing facility has worked over the last year. Overall 12,207 items of mail were posted at a cost of £13,298.42. We post QSL cards, bureau parcels and magazines using the various products as shown in the table above. During Covid times the costs were going up and up, but recently, since January we have seen costs fall, as new mailing products were introduced this year. The day to day QSL card mailings have dropped by 11p per item which is taking us back to the postal rates for letters before Covid. We kept direct QSL costs the same during that time.
DX’pedition QSL costs are very competitive as always and we welcome talking to DX teams about mailing your QSL cards in the future.
Bureau costs remain higher due to the worldwide shipping freight capacity under constant high demand. As we prepare for the next Bureau dispatch we are trying to find ways to reduce those costs. The biggest challenge to Bureau shipments is the worldwide customs regulations where we are seeing many countries putting a customs tax on Bureau shipments. No word yet from IARU about this matter. One benefit of Brexit is that we no longer have to pay 20% tax on sending mail to EU countries a saving of £1k last year.
With solar cycle 25 packing a punch, we continue to provide top QSL support to all.