Itella to trial four-day-per-week business mail delivery
Finland’s national postal service Itella will run a three-month trial this autumn, delivering high-volume business mail four days per week instead of five. The company said newspapers and parcels will continue to be delivered five days per week, as will any mail defined legally as part of the universal postal service — letters sent by individuals and small businesses using retail stamps.
Itella said it was cutting its services because of the continuing steep decline in traditional mail volumes it is facing, which has accelerated in the last four years and has been running in the double digits this year compared to last.
The company said forecasts suggested that the decline could continue until mail volumes in Finland reach just half the volume seen in 2013 by the end of this decade.
The European Union requires that universal postal service operators deliver at five days per week, but Finland’s postal laws do not include within the definition of the protected universal service letters, advertisements and magazines sent by companies via business rates.
For these services, the trial running from the beginning of September to the end of November will see delivery provided only on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
Itella said that the change would be “minor” for mail recipients since a major part of its delivery service would remain unchanged.
The areas designated for the trial include Korso, Kivenlahti, Porvoo and Riihimäki in the Greater Helsinki region of southern Finland, and further north in the Pohjois-Savo region of central Finland the areas of Varkaus and Leppävirta.
The postal operator said the chosen areas represented the various types of delivery routes found across the rest of Finland.
“Problem”
Jukka Rosenberg, senior vice president of Itella Posti, said the trial was important because while mail volumes are falling so steeply, Itella has to keep its delivery costs per item at the current levels.
“This is why we want to solve the problem of how to secure a good level of postal deliveries together with our customers. The product-specific delivery days to be tested in the trial represent a means to this end,” he said.
During the trial, a survey will gauge the experiences of mail recipients and mailers, as well as delivery staff.
Itella’s postal operator licence actually allows it, potentially, to cut delivery for non-universal mail to three days per week.
In the first quarter of the 2014 calendar year, Itella said its total volume of addressed letters fell by 10% year-on-year, magazines by 10% and unaddressed direct marketing by 23% compared to the same period in 2013.
Parcel services have seen volumes grow by 1% year-on-year, while electronic letter “volumes” have grown by 3% year-on-year, it said.
