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books with stamps on them and wings against a light blue stamp background
(Image: Tina Tiller)

SocietyJuly 13, 2023

The customer outcry that’s part and parcel of rising postage prices

books with stamps on them and wings against a light blue stamp background
(Image: Tina Tiller)

Frustration over NZ Post’s recent changes are a reminder that, even in the digital age, the demand for physical objects hasn’t gone away. 

Heath Ling prides himself on efficiency, so he was upset when changes to NZ Post’s parcel sending system were unveiled on July 1, along with increases to the cost of sending letters and upcoming redundancies. Previously, the owner of Christchurch’s Steadfast Books used prepaid postage bags, buying a range of different sizes so the mail cost was predictable. 

Now those prepaid bags are no longer available, Ling, who sends up to 10 books at a time, is eking out the last of his supply. The new system doesn’t make sense to him, he says. He has to buy the bags and the postage stickers separately, doubling the admin, and making it more difficult to keep track of labels – which stickers are for which size bag? – and tracking numbers. He hasn’t tried printing stickers out at home. “It seems that they’ve changed it just for the sake of changing it,” Ling says. “It just seems messy.” 

NZ Post says changes are intended to simplify things for most day-to-day customers, although there may end up being more admin for retailers selling postal services. “We found that a lot of people were buying prepaid parcels with a tracking number and thinking they were getting a courier service and getting confused,” says Sarah Sandoval, NZ Post’s consumer general manager. “We still have a nationwide price, but this makes it clearer that the choice is between economy and courier delivery.” 

nz post blue and red branded van
July 1 saw the introduction of a range of changes to postal services in Aotearoa (image: supplied)

Prices for sending the smallest bag size have increased from $5.20 to $5.80 (the bag costs $1 by itself). The recent price increases are not connected to the new system for mailing bags, Sandoval says, but an upside is there won’t be so much waste “We would have to destroy large numbers of the bags with the prices printed on them when we made the changes, which didn’t sit right – we don’t have to do that any more.” 

Booksellers aren’t the only people reckoning with the changes. The cost of sending bulk mail has increased 100% over the last five years, which particularly hurts businesses that send a lot of mail and people who can’t access or aren’t confident using digital services. 

“Putting the price up affects the equity of access… not just for rural, but elderly communities as well,” Rural Women executive Gabrielle O’Brien told One News last month. Rural Women was one of 13 organisations, including magazine publishers, that supported a letter questioning the deed of understanding between the government and the state-owned NZ Post, which is meant to ensure equal access to the postal network for everyone who relies on it.

a light skinned hnd reaches into a mailbox with a tree in the background
The demand for mail services has changed in the last two decades. (Image: Tony Anderson/Getty Images)

The discussion over postal service provision is a reminder of how the means of getting physical goods has and hasn’t changed in the digital age. While NZ Post delivers fewer personal items than before, online shopping has transformed its business services, Sandoval says. For instance, people used to send gifts by buying something and mailing it overseas themselves. However, it’s now common to instead buy something online that can be delivered in another country. “We have a huge role to play in connecting people,” Sandoval asserts. During the pandemic, post volumes temporarily increased, as people mailed gifts they might otherwise have delivered in person; now volumes continue their downward trend, even as the online shopping line goes up.

The increase in online shopping has meant an increase in competition in the courier sector too. Courier services are popular both for businesses and for individuals wanting to sell things on Trade Me or Facebook Marketplace, Sandoval says – the door-to-door convenience has in many cases replaced trips to the post office. 

The NZ Booksellers Association has created a group deal with a freight company for its members to use, executive chair Pene Whitty confirms: the increasing cost of shipping will be a topic at their conference later this month. 

a very cluttered warehouse of books!
Hard to Find Books in Dunedin sends dozens of books a day through its internet shop (Picture: supplied)

Secondhand bookshops, which often provide more unusual books that are sought after by a select few, embody the ongoing importance of shipping services. Secondhand bookshop stalwart Hard To Find Books has an internet branch run out of its Dunedin location, using courier company PBT for most domestic shipping, and sending overseas items through NZ Post. “By virtue of the internet we’re able to justify stocking some real niche stuff,” manager Blaze Forbes says. 

The downside of selling online is that a bookshop has to offer the best deal, since there may be several places selling the same book. “We need to be selling the cheapest copy on the internet, and we have to take into account postage as part of that,” Forbes says. The potential cost of postage becomes a crucial factor in acquiring books too. 

In sorting through his stock, Forbes is reminded of the power of physical objects – and the corresponding necessity of being able to get those objects to whoever might desire them. These books are often unavailable digitally, or are for customers looking for particular editions. “You don’t want to visit someone and see that they have no books – someone’s books offer a sense of who they are,” he says.

For books with a niche audience – he gives the example of a recent find, a collection of prisoner’s letters from the 1700s – it may not be worth letting that book take up shelf space in the physical store. “There are some weird and strange corners that the human mind has gone to, but the internet will connect the audience to that book.”

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Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie on a lime green backdrop
Image: Archi Banal

SocietyJuly 13, 2023

Help Me Hera: My friend dumped me and I don’t know why

Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie on a lime green backdrop
Image: Archi Banal

Anyone has the right to end a relationship for any reason, without explanation. But that doesn’t make it a cool thing to do. 

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz

Dear Hera, 

I have (or had) a friend for a few years who was like, a proper mate (or so I thought). It was the kind of friendship where you can just as comfortably run errands together and be emotional support people at each others’ flat viewings, as go to raves together, or stay in and bake a cake and have deep-and-meaningfuls. 

We drifted apart over Christmas (in that she didn’t respond to any texts between November and January), which I didn’t think too much of because the holidays are a writeoff for everyone. She finally texted me with the following: she needed some distance from me, didn’t feel like hanging out with me any more, and wouldn’t be responding to my messages. No explanation, no warning.

Now I’m aware this sounds like something a deeply un-self aware person would say, but: I’d like to think I’m pretty self aware, and if I’d done something to disrespect or mistreat her I think I’d know and I’d absolutely apologise. The last time we’d met, everything was great – I really couldn’t think of anything I could have done wrong. 

I’ve grown to accept that either she’s going through her own shit and isn’t ready or able to talk about it, or she’s just decided she doesn’t like me anymore, neither of which can be my problem if she won’t communicate with me. I’ve also been able to reflect on ways that our friendship dynamic wasn’t the healthiest, and that I’m maybe better off (I’m a recovering people-pleaser and she was a taker). I waited a few days to cool off before responding and said that I wasn’t sure where this all came from but I’d respect her boundaries, hoped everything was OK, and would be here if she ever wanted to pick things up again.

I feel like I’m doing all the right things to move on healthily (gone no contact, put energy into other friendships, taken up new hobbies). However, because I’m still thinking about this months later, I’ve gotta know, from the only advice columnist I can trust to step on my neck if I deserve it: what would Hera Lindsay Bird do?

Sincerely,

Dumped and Dejected

A line of fluorescent green card suit symbols – hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades

Dear DD,

As much as I’d love to write and tell you the reason your former friend cut off communication is because she’s obviously some kind of CIA informant who’s fleeing the country, I fear this is one of those mysteries which is purpose built to haunt. 

First of all, I’m sorry. This is some girl Patrick Bateman shit. Unless you’ve perpetrated some grave and hideous sin that you’ve neglected to mention, freezing someone out and never telling them why is just about the coldest thing you can do. 

Anyone has the right to end a relationship for any reason, without explanation. Just like anyone has the right to go to the zoo and have a screaming fit in front of the gibbons because “their monkey fur is too soft.” You don’t owe anyone an explanation for that either. But that doesn’t make it a cool or enlightened thing to do. 

I feel like someone is to blame for this, and it’s the HR-ification of personal relationships. She basically sent you an out-of-office auto reply to avoid having a difficult conversation. But maybe people have always been emotional cowards, and in the past they just did it via telegram, or carrier pigeon. Come to think of it, your situation is not dissimilar to The Banshees of Inisherin, only instead of doggedly following her around a small Irish village, you’re busy trying to respect her boundaries. 

I’m not against strategic ghosting on principle. You don’t have to, for instance, “take accountability” and hash out the reasons you no longer want to attend your workmate’s book club. But it sounds like you two were genuinely close. And you shouldn’t be able to end a genuine friendship as neatly and painlessly as if cancelling an audiobook subscription. 

I’m sure you’re worrying if your friend is OK. Does she have a controlling partner who doesn’t want her hanging out with anyone? Has she grown some kind of personality-altering brain tumour, or joined a religious cult? Has she been lying about her identity all along, and disappearing is easier than coming clean? Do you have a significant other she might have slept with? Is she having some kind of mental health episode? I’m stressed out, and I don’t even know her. Does her behaviour seem in character in any way? 

If it’s out of character, I’d be worried. Do you have any mutual friends that might be able to provide some insight? Can you tell anything meaningful about her safety and wellbeing from her internet presence? Is there any unobtrusive way you can check to see whether she’s been kidnapped, or having some kind of mental breakdown? 

If her behaviour is in character, that’s not great news either. Is she unusually spiteful? Or so conflict avoidant she’d rather change postcodes than have a difficult conversation? Perhaps there’s only a certain level of intimacy she’s able to tolerate before pushing people away. Has this been a pattern in other friendships in her life? 

If she’s so desperate to avoid this conversation, clearly there’s something going on. But putting you in the position of always having to wonder if you did something wrong is unnecessarily cold. Sometimes relationships end because of feelings and resentments that are too hard to fully articulate, but even so, you can make the effort to convey this sense of the unsayable, while still asking for space. 

Your friend’s behaviour is so insulting it’s tempting to scratch her name from your rolodex and move on. But it’s hard to move on, if you don’t even know what you’re moving on from. You’re trying to respect your friend’s boundaries, but I don’t think it’s crossing a boundary to tell her you’re hurt by what happened, and ask for a better explanation. You probably won’t get one, but it’s a reasonable request to make. The only problem with this approach is the possibility of hearing something you don’t like. But it’s got to be better than wondering. 

In a way, I think your friend knows that telling you the real reason – if there is a reason, and not an amorphous collection of unprocessed feelings – will only make her look bad. In giving you nothing to respond to, she’s insulated herself from any criticism, by taking on a mysterious higher ground that you’re afraid to interrogate, out of fear of hearing some horrible and shaming revelation about yourself. 

There’s a lot of power in withholding. There are hidden reserves of self-loathing in everyone, that if triggered by an event like this, would make anyone question everything they’d ever done or said. It’s a recipe for driving you insane. But as far as possible, you should try not to take it personally. Even if you did do something wrong, she’s done something wronger. Her behaviour says more about her than it says about you. And what it says about her is that she sucks. 

Hoping you have better luck next time around. 

Want Hera’s help? Email your problem to helpme@thespinoff.co.nz. Read the previous Help Me Heras here.

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