We’re getting to that time of year where my inbox is full of price notices due to contractual CPI or RPI+ based increases. It seems most of the industry engineers growth into their sale contracts through price increases, with penal additional increases for those who are no longer bound by those contracts. We endure this on the buy side but I find it really dirty and, it seems, like origin surcharges and ignoring nuisance calls, it is free money our competitors fall over themselves to grab. This year they seem to be landing between +2-4% – egregious but less painful than a few years ago where +20% was not uncommon!
It therefore seemed an opportune time to reiterate that we don’t play this dirty game. We review our prices infrequently and try to do so fairly. Costs go up every year but we manage to offset this with greater volume from customers, automation and efficiency so we don’t have to pass them on to our customers. That makes sense in an industry where the ultimate consumer should be experiencing prices decreasing year on year.
Our last headline price increase on Carrier Services was to our minimum spend and that was back in March 2023 – 3 years ago. Since that time, ignoring 2026 which isn’t reported yet, CPI is +10.7% and RPI a whopping +16-18% (the range reflecting estimates for 2025) before any contracted premium. That is at least +11-18% we have not increased prices relative to competitors, despite increases on the cost side, or put another way an effective price cut. Other prices, for those exceeding the minimum spend, have been way longer since a published increase, some staying unchanged for 20 years!
Some may read this and be shouting at the screen “ah, but you’re now charging for porting exports”. We are, but remember we introduced a 75% discount on imports at the same time for those benefitting from automation. Anyone growing should be importing more numbers than they export, so we view this change as a price cut for most customers, and headline figures certainly support that. Those growing customers are now not subsidising those who are going the other way.
We like to forge our own path and don’t go in for sleazy money grabs. That isn’t easy sometimes and it would be very easy to join in, but we don’t want to. It means an awful lot to us when customers recognise this and appreciate it and reward us with growth where possible – that feedback loop is critical to us continuing to do this.
