Swiss Post confirms service and pricing changes

Swiss Post has confirmed it will be raising a number of prices later this year as it adjusts its portfolio. As a part of an overall revision of its product strategy, Swiss Post said it will amend offerings for business customers.

The operator confirmed that individual ‘A Mail’ letters, individual ‘B Mail’ items, and parcels will not be affected.

The move forms part of a plan to allow the differing units of Swiss Post to operate “on a financially independent basis”.

Changes to pricing and services will take effect on 1 April 2011.

The Department for the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (DETEC) has rubber-stamped the plans “relating to postal items weighing up to 50 g and newspapers”, Swiss Post said.

Under the plans, ‘Registered’ letters (up to 100g) in the private customer segment will be subject to a CHF 4 surcharge on top of the regular ‘A Mail’ price.

Heavier letters will be charged more accordingly, with the same framework being applied to parcels.

The price for the “manual processing” additional service for parcels with special dimensions will rise from CHF 3 to CHF 4.

Courier, express and bulky goods services will all be subject to adjustments in terms of offerings and prices.

The second delivery attempt for the Swiss-Express “Moon” next-day delivery service and the Swiss-Courier “Lightning” courier service will be free of charge from 1 April.

Swiss Post confirmed a unit price of CHF 49 will apply to all weight categories in the Swiss-Courier “Lightning” offering.

The ‘B Mail’ bulk mail offering for business customers will comprise fewer weight categories.

Swiss Post is introducing electronic cash on delivery, enabling simpler processing.

In future, it will be less expensive to send ‘A Mail’ items with the ‘Track & Trace’ mail tracking service and the liability limit will be lowered.

DETEC has approved a price of CHF 8 for the dispatch of debt collection documents, recently offered in conjunction with the “Track & Trace” additional service.

Prices for the loss-making newspaper delivery service are also being adjusted.

Swiss Post is increasing the delivery prices for newspapers “without press subsidies” by 1-6 centimes per issue, depending on the publication frequency.

The delivery rates for newspapers “with press subsidies”, which are subject to approval, will be adjusted three months after the officially approved adjustment date in line with inflation and will rise by 0.5%.

Swiss Post said the publishers were notified of these changes in writing back in August 2009. While these new pricing measures “will help reduce the deficit, a huge gap will still remain”.

Even with the price increases, the rates for newspaper delivery are still low in comparison to other countries, the operator confirmed.

The planned charge for returned ‘B Mail’ business customer items within Switzerland will not be implemented.

It will, however, take into account the address quality of domestic letters when calculating individual discounts.

Swiss Post will also be introducing additional fee-based services for the disposal and electronic recording of non-deliverable items.