Germans offer alternative to Australia Post
If you are sending mail abroad, there is a new alternative to Australia Post: the Germans.
Pack & Send, the national postal and packaging retail franchise, teamed up with Deutsche Post Global Mail last month to offer customers the Global Mail Packet, for the worldwide delivery of parcels weighing less than two kilograms.
“Deutsche Post Global Mail came to us because they wanted to enter the small business market by leveraging off our retail network,” said Pack & Send’s managing director, Michael Paul . “The alliance will allow us to provide the market with an alternative to Australia Post.”
DPGM has worked in Australia since July 2000, but has concentrated on bulk, business-to-business deliveries rather than small parcels.
Last year, DPGM’s Australian turnover was $10 million.
The deal reflects the growing recognition of the Pack & Send franchise, which is opening an average of 15 new stores every year.
When he opened the first store in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta in 1993, Mr Paul set out to fill a gap in the postal market for parcels that were too large for Australia Post, which has a general limit of 20 kilograms, and too small to use a freight company.
“The freight industry was facing tough times in the early ’90s and moving away from the small end of the market,” Mr Paul said.
By forming alliances with TNT, which handles national deliveries, and DHL (for international deliveries) and offering added value postal services such as professional packaging and moving large, fragile, awkward or valuable goods Pack & Send has been able to offer small businesses a cost-effective option.
The overseas mail market was deregulated in 1996, allowing Pack & Send to deliver abroad, and it began to build up a critical mass of stores. Mr Paul presides over a network of 54 franchises, which recorded turnover of $15 million this financial year, up 25 per cent.
“With an alliance like this one, I expect growth will accelerate even more,” Mr Paul said.
He expects to have 110 stores by 2005.
