Retail Digest – Russian Post offers stocks; Estonian Post to sell drugs
Rounding up some of the latest news on alternative products being launched in post offices – including financial services in Romania and Russia, mobile phone services in France and medicine in Estonia…
La Poste expands mobile phone services in France
France’s La Poste is continuing to expand its offering of mobile phone services, expanding to 450 more post offices.
The postal service has now rolled out its La Poste Mobile offering, ranging from prepaid phone cards and packs, to subscription services, to 2,000 post offices since its launch in May. It is also testing out offerings in 70 offices located within very small rural communities.
With the largest potential distribution network in France, La Poste wants to roll out its entire mobile phone service range to 10,000 post offices by the end of 2012.
Russian Post brings the stock market to the post office
The start of this month saw Russian post offices effectively becoming part of Russia’s national stock market system, under a pilot programme in the Astrakhan, Volgograd and Chuvash Republic areas.
Russian Post said it is making the stock market more accessible to ordinary Russians under the partnership with investment firm Finam. Visitors to participating post offices will be able to open a brokerage account in order to access trading platforms QUIK, TRANSAQ, Finam Trade and TS Lab. After evaluating the pilot programme, the service could be rolled out across the country.
Igor Mandrykin, the deputy director general of Russian Post, said: “We are open for cooperation with partners and are actively working on developing our technological base. This is creating the conditions for expanding our range of financial services.”
Estonian Post to sell non-prescription drugs in post offices
Ahti Kallaste, the chief executive of Estonian Post, has said his company is preparing to sell over-the-counter medicine in its network of 387 post offices.
With “definite demand” for easier access to non-prescription drugs, local post offices are suitable for such a purpose because of their state control, Kallaste suggested. Under consideration for some time, Estonian Post will not be looking to stock a wide range of medicines beyond common cold, fever and stomach condition remedies, and will be advised on the matter by specialists.
“There are lots of villages where the nearest family doctor is miles away,” said the Estonian Post chief. “Why should people have to take a long trip to go to the pharmacies rather than buy medicine in the post office?”
Romanian Post launches money transfer service
The Romanian National Post Company has launched a new domestic electronic money transfer service, MoneyPost.
The Post has integrated its post offices into a virtual private network, allowing customers to transfer euros to other individuals including residents and non-residents.
The service is limited to EUR 5,000 per transaction, while there is also a requirement for the sender and recipient to have a prior agreement in place before a transfer is made.
