Ron, I quite liked your theory RE: shipping prices from the UK being subsidised by Royal Mail (very neat really), except c r c used DHL Express for my order.RonK wrote: It seems the Royal Mail is one of the most efficient and inexpensive postal services in the world. Even the stores in Germany cannot match the UK shipping arrangements.
I did some, albeit brief, research on Royal Mail and subsidisation by the UK taxpayer... couldn't find much on the topic. I believe Royal Mail is similar to Australia Post - government owned corporation. I did find that the UK government plans to sell 90% of RM in 2013-14. 10% will remained owned by RM staff.
So I'm still quite curious as to how shipping is so cheap UK to Aus. My vote would be on economies of scale... but that does not explain the UK vs US differential... is there more to it?