Tag: Domestic

US Postal Service Sends Consumers a Holiday Greeting

Posted by | Nov 7, 2007 | |

Help is on the way. The U.S. Postal Service will mail 110 million greeting cards to households across the country this week, offering simple solutions for holiday challenges.

“Everyone can use a little extra help around the holidays. We know that customers want more choices and convenience to help manage their time, especially this time of year,” said Anita Bizzotto, USPS chief marketing officer and executive vice president. “The Holiday Guide is one more way for us to help families enjoy the best the season has to offer. Today’s holidays need today’s mail.”

This is the fourth year the Postal Service has created a special holiday guide for consumers. Unlike the guides of holidays past, this year’s guide is designed to look more like a greeting card. And instead of a series of quick takes on products and services, the card sends recipients to the Internet and usps.com.

The Postal Service website is like a Post Office that’s always open, available to customers at a time and place convenient for them. The card highlights some of the most popular services offered online that will give consumers something they can really use during the holidays.

In the time it takes to download a tune or a video onto an iPod, customers can:

– Pay postage
– Print shipping labels
– Request free package pickup
– Build personalized greeting cards
– Create holiday postage
– Order free, environmentally friendly packaging
– Find Post Office locations and hours

Customers also can check on recommended mailing dates to make sure packages arrive safely and on time for the holidays. First-Class Mail and Priority Mail should be sent by Dec. 20. The recommended date for sending items by Express Mail is Dec. 22. And the date for sending holiday cheer by Parcel Post, the most economical service, is Dec. 15.

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Royal Mail payments won't plug pension hole

Posted by | Nov 6, 2007 | |

Royal Mail’s plan to clear its pension deficit is set to leave a 2.9 billion pound hole because the group is understating the size of the deficit, a leading pension consultant said on Tuesday.
In a note for RBC Capital Markets, independent consultant John Ralfe says the company’s latest annual report shows it is basing its 17-year plan of inflation-linked annual payments of 260 million pounds on a deficit of 3.4 billion pounds — below the 5 billion pound deficit under accounting standard IAS 19.
Such a payment plan is set to leave a deficit of 2.9 billion pounds, meaning the group may have to raise charges to customers.
The Royal Mail pension scheme’s 450,000 members make it the UK’s largest corporate pension scheme by that measure.
Ralfe’s note comes shortly after the state-owned group, which lost its 350-year monopoly on postal services last year, faced strikes by workers over pensions, pay and shift changes.
The company said last week falling mail volumes, rising competition and a payment into its pension scheme led to a one-third drop in annual profit. It also attracted controversy by saying Chief Executive Adam Crozier would collect 74 percent of his performance-related bonus.
Ralfe said Royal Mail’s shortfall in payments could lead to higher charges for customers.
“Customers are paying for the pension deficit through higher stamp prices, agreed with Postcomm in the 2006-2010 price control review,” he said.

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Singapore Post has announced its financial results for the second quarter and half year ended 30 September 2007 reporting growth in profit and revenues.

Posted by | Nov 6, 2007 | |

The Group posted an 8.8pct growth in revenue from SGD106.6 million to SGD116.0 million in Q2 FY 2007/08, on the back of improved performances by the three business segments.

– Mail revenue grew 8.5pct from SGD82.2 million to SGD89.2 million, boosted by higher postings and price adjustments. Total mail volume rose by 9.9pct, underpinned by a 15.1pct growth in the direct mail segment. During the quarter, a new service, DMrocket, was launched to further grow the direct mail business. DMrocket is a specialist direct mail centre that offers one-stop direct mail solutions to meet customers’ needs.
– Logistics revenue rose 11.5pct from SGD15.8 million to SGD17.6 million, as a result of
increased contributions from Speedpost and warehousing, fulfillment and distribution.
– A new concept store within post offices, Speedpost Centre, was launched in the second
quarter, to offer complete delivery solutions to both corporate and retail customers.
– Retail revenue increased 9.0pct from SGD14.0 million to SGD15.3 million, as growth in financial services and vPOST on-line shopping transactions offset the decline in agency services. vPOST Asia was further rolled out into the region, with the service being offered in India and Australia, in addition to Thailand and Malaysia

1 Singapore Dollar (SGD) = 0.69003 US Dollar (USD)

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Provisional results of the survey on working conditions in the licensed letter service

Posted by | Nov 6, 2007 | |

The Federal Network Agency has evaluated the data collected so far in its
survey of licence holders on basic working conditions in the licensed letter
service and passed them on to the Advisory Council.

“These are provisional results with no real surprises”, Agency President,
Matthias Kurth, said. They show no significant deviation from the findings of
the study on working conditions in the letters market published last May by the
Bad Honnef consultancy WIK. Confirmed in particular was a clear gap in wage
levels, both between the old and the new federal states and between individual
groups of postal staff.

The evaluation currently shows the weighted average hourly wage for staff
employed by operators competing with Deutsche Post AG, depending on the
region, to vary from around six to 10 euros (national average EUR 8.30). The hourly
rates for letter delivery staff are also in this range. However, the national
average is lower at EUR 7.33.

In June 2007 the Agency sent out a questionnaire to some 1,500 licence holders
to collect data for an empirical study of wage levels, weekly working hours and
holiday entitlements. Despite initial legal problems regarding the scope of the
survey, 1,321 completed questionnaires have been received to date, a return rate
of around 87 percent. These companies, in turn, represent about 85 percent of
the postal staff employed by the competitors.

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