A fuel tax introduced by the Royal Mail will affect thousands of businesses across Islington.
The government owned service will add a 2.5 per cent fuel levy to every bulk parcel sent by contract customers from 2 April.
Small and medium sized businesses including individual sellers on websites such as eBay and Amazon will be hit by the change as well as retailers reliant on postal services and online sales.
Previous Royal Mail price hikes have done away with a banding system for parcels weighing up to 250g meaning lighter and cheaper items are now costing more to ship.
Christian Patel, manager of Regulation Clothing on St Albans Place, said: “It does mean passing on some of the costs to our customers. Their 2.5 per cent fuel levy could mean a 10 per cent increase in costs to our customers.
“Royal Mail are becoming less competitive. At the moment we use them for about half of our smaller deliveries with the other half with private companies such as FedEx and UPS.
“If Royal Mail continues to increase its prices we may consider using them less.”
A company spokesperson told The Sun that it was emulating other operators who charge “six to nine per cent” to cover fuel costs.
Petitions sent to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills are calling for the government to impose a price freeze for 2014 onwards as well as making the company re-think size restrictions.
Islington Chamber of Commerce was unavailable for comment.
