Brazilian Post Office plans to launch e-Commerce services
Correios, the Brazilian Post, has firmed up plans to launch a suite of e-commerce services over the next couple of months. The head of its Internet Business Operations Antonio Braquehais said the post had recently selected technology partners that would enable it to introduce the new online services. The companies bid on the business. Upcoming offerings include an e-mail service, an online mall and installing Internet kiosks at post offices.
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ONLINE REPORTER (UK) 12th August 2002
BRAZILIAN POST FIRMS UP E-COMMERCE PLANS
Correios, the Brazilian Post, has firmed up plans to launch a suite of e-commerce services over the next couple of months.
The head of its Internet Business Operations Antonio Braquehais said the post had recently selected technology partners that would enable it to introduce the new online services.
The companies bid on the business.
Upcoming offerings include an e-mail service, an online mall and installing Internet kiosks at post offices.
Correios selected Brazil Telecom's ISP unit BrT Servicos de Internet as its partner for the free e-mail service. BrT Servicos will be responsible for setting it up and maintaining it while the post will manage and retain control over user information. Based on prior authorization, the data could be used to update records maintained by government agencies. Correios plans to give each Brazilian a free permanent e-mail address. Besides a mailbox, the service is supposed to come with a personal diary and calendar so users can schedule appointments. The post expects to make money by charging senders an unspecified fee to deliver mail, documents and marketing material.
The e-mail address will be linked to the user's physical address so senders can route information either electronically or through traditional hard copy postal delivery depending on user preferences. Correios, which is investing about $5.9 million in the project, expects 1.2 million electronic mailboxes will be set up year one and 4.2 million in the coming years.
According to Braquehais, the e-mail service will move into pilot in September and be available to the public in October.
The service was originally scheduled to debut in July but the time spent identifying a technology provider seems to have delayed it a few months.
The post has picked Unisys Brasil to provide an Internet kiosk infrastructure.
Brazilian Post officials said Unisys would be responsible for installing, maintaining and managing the terminals. Unisys will supply both the hardware and software to manage the whole process.
Brazilian Post proposes to set up 5,690 Internet terminals in its post offices that would let users browse the net, register e-mail addresses, send and receive e-mail and make e-commerce transactions. Officials said customers would be able to browse the Brazilian Post web site and the Governmental Network Portal free-of-charge for 10 minutes and register and use a permanent post-supplied email address.
Correios also plans to provide free access to its partners' web sites and the services they sponsor. Customers will be charged to visit other web sites, print and transfer files. They will pay with credits purchased in the post office and use a smart card. The kiosk project is expected to reduce the Digital Divide in a country where only 8.2% of the population, some 14 million people, have access to the Internet.
Brazilian Post is investing $35.3 million in the kiosk project. Correios is also launching an online mall together with a consortium of companies that includes TBA Informática, Brasil Online, Embratel, Paradigma Tecnologia e Orientação and Universo Online.
The Virtual Mall game plan is meant to give small and midsized enterprises the technical, commercial and logistical infrastructure they need to carry out secure, low-cost e-commerce transactions. For customers without a credit card or bank account, the post office will accept cash payment for their online purchases.
The Virtual Mall is supposed to feature windows in Spanish and English and let e-tailers reach out to international markets. The post expects 700 new e-tailers will set up shop the first year alone. Over the next few years, it expects 4,900 virtual stores to use its infrastructure.
Brazilian Post already offers a suite of e-services including Internet telegrams and hybrid mail and sells stamps and other postal products online.
Positioning itself as "the ideal partner in e-commerce," Correios says it has a few more projects on the boil including e-billing, secure messaging and document delivery and a digital certificate authority. Most likely, these services will debut next year. Officials involved in implementing the new online initiatives say they "represent a transition of the main business of the Brazilian Post – the transportation of messages and parcels and the provision of services to citizens – to the virtual environment afforded by the Internet." – Raga Rao
