Posts are increasingly providing more innovative services to meet customers’ new communication needs, as the Internet and e-commerce usher in a new wave of globalization, says Universal Postal Union Director General Bishar A. Hussein on World Post Day, celebrated today 9 October.
This new wave of globalization is calling for greater inclusion of citizens everywhere, and Posts, with their 640,000 public post offices worldwide, are becoming essential logistics partners.
“I urge governments to carry on investing in their national postal network so citizens and businesses continue to benefit from essential and affordable public services,” says Hussein.
Facing declining physical letter-post volumes, Posts are reading the digital writing on the wall and focusing on parcels and small packets. Thanks to the burgeoning domestic and cross-border e-commerce. domestic and international parcel volumes worldwide grew at an average annual rate of more than 5% between 2006 and 2012.
Letter-post still generates more than 40% of overall postal revenues, and there are regions, such as Latin America, where volumes are actually increasing. Nevertheless, overall volumes are going down at an annual rate of about 3 to 4% according to UPU estimates, due essentially to electronic substitution.
Posts processed an estimated 350.9 billion letter-post items (including 3.7 billion international items) in 2012.
Interestingly though, the weight of international mail items (letters, parcels, express items) is going up, according to UPU analyses. Since 2011, international mail tonnage has increased at an annual rate slightly higher than 10%, a sign of e-commerce’s impact on the content of a letter carrier’s mailbag.
The UPU predicts these trends will continue, as cross-border e-commerce is expected to deliver sales of 1.5 trillion dollars by year-end.
To prepare for this growth, UPU member countries are rolling out a new optional service for the return of merchandise purchased abroad online.
The UPU has also developed an electronic customs declaration system enabling Posts and Customs to more efficiently process international parcels.
Connectivity
With only 32% of the population in the developing world having access to the Internet, Hussein urged governments to also pay attention to connectivity in post offices so these can bring services to the people who need them.
“The global postal network is a tremendous asset for extending digital reach – not only for the benefit of citizens and businesses, but also for governments, development agencies and other stakeholders looking for solutions to many of the challenges our world is grappling with,” Hussein stressed. “By increasing post offices’ electrical and Internet connectivity, governments can ensure that post offices make a major contribution to efforts to bring communication, financial, social and economic services to rural populations.
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