Estimated market size for the UK-B2C market
Estimated market size for the UK-B2C market
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Citibank signs partnership with Vietnam Postal Saving Service
Citibank said Tuesday it has signed a contract to provide its banking services to state-owned Vietnam Postal Saving Service Co.
The partnership between Citi and VPSC will enable millions of Vietnamese people using the VPSC network in more than 3,000 district-level post offices to make payments to firms which are banking with Citibank, the bank said in a statement.
Charly Madan, Citibank’s country director for Vietnam, said the contract will help add 800 outlets now and 2,400 more in the next year to the bank’s local service network.
VPSC was set up in 1999 with a registered capital of VND163 billion ($10 million) and currently has VND7.5 trillion in lending to state funds, the statement said.
Read MoreDHL Packstations headed for nationwide coverage in Germany
DHL has announced plans to double its network of automated parcel drop-off and collection points for private customers in Germany and complete nationwide coverage by 2009.
The DPWN subsidiary said it will add another 1,500 machines to the existing 900 Packstations by the end of 2009. As a result, 90 pct of Germans will then be able to access one of the 2,400 Packstations within 10 minutes.
Customers can use Packstations to ship and collect parcels and packages 24 hours a day. In addition to the 13,500 retail outlets and 1,000 parcel mailboxes that will be available by 2008, the increased number of Packstations will give the parcel service of Deutsche Post World Net the densest web of parcel collection and mailing points in the German market by far.
The roughly 900 German Packstations are currently used by 700,000 registered customers, and the trend is still pointing upward. The offer has been embraced with particular enthusiasm by singles and working people as it allows them to dispatch and collect their parcels entirely independently of traditional home delivery and without having to pay heed to the opening times of retail outlets.
Already today, most Packstations allow customers to dispatch their EU-wide shipments without prior registration as the necessary parcel and package stamps are also available at the Packstation – for one euro less than at the retail outlet. In addition, the Packstation accepts C.O.D. parcels up to a value of 1,500 euros.
Read MoreWeb post can save the planet and cut costs
First there was VOIP – the revolutionary new way to make cheap phone calls over the internet. Now there’s POIP – or post-over-internet-protocol – which promises to slash the cost of sending business letters.
A new company called Viapost has opened its doors and is advertising its services directly to small firms.
Founded by serial entrepreneur Ben Way, 27, Viapost will charge only 24p to deliver a one sheet letter the next day to anywhere in the UK – and it will pay for the stationery and ink.
advertisementViapost’s chief executive Simon Campbell, 28, said: “We are doing for the postal market what Skype has done for the telephone market. It’s so simple in many ways: it’s cheaper, it’s faster and it’s greener.”
Like Skype, firms register on the site, download the free software and add credit to an account, which is then accessed on a pay as you go basis.
Viapost has developed the software and has partnered with printing centres around the country so that letters can be printed close to where they are to be delivered. The firm still uses the Royal Mail’s postmen to deliver the letters to people’s homes.
Mr Campbell said the firm would have 10 printing centres in major cities like London, Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow to start with. The target is 30 for full national coverage.
At the same time, Viapost is planning international expansion. “We are talking about sending a letter to Hong Kong that will arrive tomorrow and only cost you the price of a local stamp,” said Mr Campbell. “We want to go into the deregulated German market and the States. Within three years we are looking at handling over three billion items a year.”
Mr Campbell said large companies like banks and utilities were particularly interested by the environmental savings that could be made.
Carbon Planet, an Australian firm that conducts carbon audits, has just inspected the firm. “They found our processes will reduce 75pc of the carbon footprint of sending a letter,” said Mr Campbell, who is a serial entrepreneur having set up four businesses in the last six years.
Mr Way said he came up with the idea two years ago when he first read about the proposed deregulation of postal services.
“The more I looked into it the more excited I got,” he said. “I have to say that Viapost, if it’s a success, is the biggest project I have worked on in my life. It’s a GBP 5bn industry.”
Mr Way made his name developing a search technology called Waysearch, which later became a business-to-business product called Pulsar.
The business went bust during the dot.com crash, but he has bounced back and is now involved in eight ventures via his intellectual property development firm Rainmakers and in his role as chief innovations officer of Bright Station Venture’s GBP 100m venture capital fund.
Viapost has assembled an impressive board, all of whom have invested in the company. The non-executives include Chris Moss, founder of directory assistance service 118118, advertising guru MT Rainey, former Microsoft UK board director Natalie Ayres and David Bland, the former south east chairman of consumer champion Postwatch.
Read MoreLogistics Map of Russia
Logistics Map of Russia
Read MoreRedbox buys two kiosk technology patents
No. 1 kiosk-based DVD rental company, Redbox says its purchase of two technology patents will protect its business model going forward.
One patent, called “Automated Merchandise Dispensing and Retrieval System,” is for a system that allows consumers to rent DVDs from any of its 4,800 kiosks and return it to another one. A second patent, called “Article Dispensing System,” is for a system that allows Redbox’s field team to restock kiosks more efficiently by inserting a pre-packed unit each week.
Redbox VP of marketing Gary Lancina said the company implemented the patents on June 26 and June 28.
Redbox is the largest kiosk-based rental operator and the fourth largest among all home video rental companies, behind Blockbuster, Netflix and Movie Gallery.
Each automated kiosk offers 500 DVDs of new releases for $1 each per night, which can be paid with a credit card or debit card. If a movie is not returned in 25 days, the credit card is charged $25 and the renter becomes the owner.
Jointly owned by McDonald’s Corp. subsidiary Coinstar, the automated change counter, Redbox has kiosks in grocery stores, McDonald’s restaurants and other retailers.
It’s nearest rival, TNR Corp., which operates MovieCube kiosks, counts about 2,000 kiosks machines in various grocery outlets. DVDPlay has more than 1,000 machines in the U.S. and Canada.
Redbox said this summer it rented 11 million movies between June 2006 and June 2007.
Read MoreFedEx Kinko's continues to expand footprint
In early August, FedEx Kinko’s made two major announcements. First, the company announced an aggressive expansion plan to open 300 new office and print centers in the United States throughout fiscal 2008. The company also will redesign 110 existing centers and introduce 20 new locations internationally. A few days later, FedEx Kinko’s announced plans to open five office and print centers in the McCormick Place convention center and historic Navy Pier in Chicago. So when you show up at Graph Expo in September, although the new FedEx Kinko’s sites will not have been formally launched (scheduled for later in September), they will reflect the FedEx Kinko’s brand.
WhatTheyThink spoke with Tom Leverton, Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer at FedEx Kinko’s, to learn more about the company’s expansion plans. Leverton leads FedEx Kinko’s domestic retail expansion operations and manages the company’s digital networks and centralized production facilities. His responsibilities include strategy, network operations, national retail product businesses, supply chain and real estate. He joined FedEx Kinko’s in 2001 as vice president, strategy and business development and later expanded his role to vice president, strategy and marketing. Leverton’s professional experience also includes corporate strategy, finance, business development and consulting with TXU Energy, Bain and Company and Johnson & Johnson.
Read MoreRetail Viewpoint – Retailers recognise small can be beautiful
It appears that small could become increasingly beautiful in retail land judging by the interest shown by merchants in smaller outlets.
For many years it has simply been about getting ever-bigger sheds near large conurbations while small stores in small towns have been left to remainder book sellers and charity shops.
But we could now be experiencing something of a renaissance in the smaller outlet. The mobile phone retailers have realised that saturation has been reached in the larger towns around the UK and are now focusing their attention on servicing lesser towns through stores with reduced footprints and in the case of O2 it is tying this in with franchising whereby it can run these stores from lower volumes.
B&Q is the latest operator to turn its attention to smaller outlets as it looks to better tailor this part of its portfolio in what are typically smaller towns. The ability to successfully edit the range of such stores to local markets is of paramount importance and ultimately determines the success or failure of smaller stores. But where retailers today have assistance with this tough task is through the use of in-store kiosks with broadband connections where orders can be place by customers for home delivery.
There is also a rekindling of interest with smaller stores in the US where the forthcoming opening of Tesco’s chain of smallish neighbourhood food stores is leading to all the main US supermarkets – including Wal-Mart, Safeway and Whole Foods – to take a look at copying the format and using them to compliment their massive sheds.
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