Well I've had a reply from Tchibo explaining why they've put their delivery prices up - v long, but I'll post it, in case anyone's interested.... So here goes:
Dear Mrs No,
Thank you very much for your email.
We must apologise for the displeasure we caused you by increasing the postage and handling fees for deliveries to the UK and we would like to take this opportunity to inform you about the background regarding this decision:
A fundamental criterion for this decision was the large increase in diesel prices. This resulted in a considerable increase in our logistics costs.
Unfortunately, we have also recorded a large drop in orders in the UK during the past months, which has led to an increase in the variable costs per order.
Thus, in order to be able to continue to offer our UK customers the possibility to purchase high-quality and innovative Tchibo products in the future, we unfortunately had to pass on part of the increased costs involved to our customers. We decided to increase the postage and handling fees as it was not our wish to have to increase the actual product prices.
However, having said that, ordering online does have certain benefits :
Price for postage and packaging is always 12,95 GBP when ordering either 1 or 100 items. This fee is necessary to be able to deliver the items to your doorstep.
You are always entitled to send any or all items back if you are not satisfied with your purchase and you will receive a full refund. You can do so using the returns label included in the package and this is free of charge. Items under warranty and out of warranty are can be returned free of charge if they need to be repaired, replaced or refunded. Technical Tchibo articles have a 3 year warranty.
Furthermore, as all items are shipped from Germany, we cannot offer free deliveries like other companies.
Some United Kingdom based companies may offer very cheap or free deliveries to the United Kingdom, however they charge more than EUR 3.00 /item for countries outside of the United Kingdom. A German customer, for example, who orders 5 small items from a company may pay up to EUR 20.00 for postage and packaging.
The increase in price of postage and packaging was necessary for Tchibo to be able to continue to guarantee good value for money. A good idea would be to consolidate an order together with friends and relatives in order to be able to split the postage fee.
We hope you understand the reasons for the postage and packaging fee and hope you will continue to place your confidence in our company and products.
Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us.
We look forward to welcoming you to tchibo.eu again soon.
Yours sincerely,
Your tchibo.eu-team