Quote Originally Posted by SteveLAO View Post
ah, 6 earrings.....so 3 pairs! I thought you meant 6 pairs of earrings!

I don't think I can do anything about the P&P charge nor the VAT

The net charge then is £42.00. You requested early hall which incurs, as it always had, a 50% surcharge. Of course, that's not a compulsory charge...

The general charges have actually stayed pretty much the same for many years without even inflationary rises, and so the price list was well overdue for an overhaul. We elected to introduce a completely new way of charging to make things easier, and yes it did include a modest general price rise, the first for many years.

Of course you're welcome to continue to mark your own items if you wish to, but there is no financial advantage for doing so. I have to say though that I don't think the all inclusive price including the application of the sponsors mark is unique to our assay office.

I'm sorry that you feel that we should have kept the pricing about the same. Everything has gone up over the years, apart from our general prices, and clearly this could not go on for ever. Sooner or later the prices had to go up, and over the last years, when business had been tough for everyone, we deliberately kept our prices unchanged to try to help the trade with their costs.

We did give all our customers for whom we had up to date contact information fair warning, so it should not have been too much of a surprise that there was a price increase.
The letter from Goldsmiths which I had on February 25th informed me as a "valued customer" about 2015 Price Adjustment. I am not so stupid as to assume or expect prices to remain the same or not to increase but for a similar parcel in 4 weeks to go from a charge of £48.00 to £87.72 is I would say more than a modest general price rise.