Newsagents with post office agencies may be interested to read about the move in Denmark where people can text the post office for a code which is written on an envelope instead of purchasing a stamp. The BBC report says that Sweden is also considering the move.
I don’t see Australia Post moving to this any time soon unless they want to divert focus away from their retail network, especially their government owned stores. Personally, I’d encourage Australia Post to do anything possible to reduce traffic to their government owned stores.
My personal issues with Australia Post aside, the mode in Denmark does make sense.
Interesting that according to that article they’re paying for the cost of the stamp plus the phone call charges. Seems to be sort of like a 0055 – STAMP system where it appears theyre making even more money than just the single stamp purchase.
Might be partly driven by the fact that most (if not all) of the European postal services are losing money and cutting services (delivery days are decreasing in many countries). AP here at least is taking the lead and pursuing other avenues of revenue outside the traditional areas
Paul S,
Why would one want a government owned monopoly to pursue other avenues for revenue when those other avenues inevitably compete wih private business?
I’m an LPO as well as a newsagent Jarryd, thats why, so I do potentially get a benefit from AP sourcing other revenue streams! 😉
Fair enough Paul. Your a private business. Surely you would rather the retail side of Aust Post to be limited to private enterprise and not have to compete with government owned stores.
Profits from Aust Post’s retail activities may prop up their bottom line but it certainly wont starve off the decline in demand for postal services. Last year they closed 20 odd stores and im sure we’ll see more close each year.
The stores they’ve been closing have been predominantly corporate ones. I suspect its a combination them cutting their operating costs and the fact that they’ve often found that licencees or co owned stores often do a better job financially. Most of the corporate stores will change over to licenced or co owned stores over the coming couple of years and have been changing over for quite a while.
In regard to competing with government (or really any other store) I don’t entirely think it matters. Most of the govt stores (and a good many privately owned businesses) are staffed by people who present a poor face to customers or simply don’t want to be there. If you provide friendly customer service, customers will come to you anyhow more often that not.