Tag: Europe

Recent evidence put forward in a ‘Mail Trends’ document written by Fouad H. Nader (Adrenale Corporation) and Michael Lintell (Pitney Bowes), suggests that those with internet access are actually likely to send and recieve more mail than someone without internet access. Much of the content is given over to U.S. examples but it does underline a growing fall in mail volume just about everywhere. However, competition has also helped ‘ease’ the downturn in profitability of many state-owned postal operators in liberalized markets, even if the ‘face value’ of such mail is less than ordinary stamped mail. This is particularly true of DSA (downsteam access).

It would be fair to say though, that the internet has put pressure on postal operators with all of us making the most of email, but there is also some evidence to suggest that ‘hybrid’ mail is where traditional post, and the internet, can actually work well together. The technology to combine the two is already here, but it does rely, in most cases, on a relay approach to delivery – as we discovered.

At the moment theres a real battle going on for this desktop postal service market and certainly the print industry are keen to grab a slice. If you’re not familiar with ‘hybrid mail’ (and each system is slightly different from the next), essentially you type a letter or prepare a document on your PC and instead of printing it, you send it encrypted, to another company who unencrypt it, print it for you, stick it in an envelope and arrange for it to be posted.

Firstly, its not actually a new idea and it isn’t aimed at the domestic market. The French and the Australian postal services have been offering it as a service for the transit of documents for some time, even Spain has a system – Correo Digital, but now the print industry is moving in on the idea, with additional features to make it more attractive to business. Whether there is actually enough demand to keep them all in business is another matter, but like double-glazing, the sales pitch is awash with references to ‘the environment’ and ‘carbon footprints’ to help sell the idea. With EU pressure now being exerted on large organisations to reduce waste and any enviromental impact, it all falls rather neatly into the laps of creative marketers trying to promote these systems.

What isn’t clear from the sales literature is just how much the ‘carbon footprint’ is being reduced. One could almost say it was vague. For one thing, Royal Mail will still be delivering most of it and hybrid mail is basically fed into RM’s postal network either through third-party, or direct access agreements, and unless each system has print shops in just about every city in the UK, some mail could actually end up travelling further than it would if it were dropped into the nearest post box – it isn’t easy to ascertain. Naturally each player is quick to point out that their infrastructure is superior to everyone else, as indeed they might, but they all tend to hold their cards very close to their chests when pressed on exactly where all this mail will be printed and despatched from. Lets face it, if you’re a new player, scalability is key but you have to start somewhere and it isn’t going to be profitable without good old DSA anyway, unless you’re big enough at the outset to cut a deal with Royal Mail.

There are quite a few around including Viapost, TNTit, I-Mail, Vendigo Hybrid, Printsoft, and PDQit, plus other systems owned by postal operators that have for the most part, sat on the back-burner or are still being developed. All of them seem to be on some kind of ‘pay as you go’ basis too, using ‘free to download’ software. I imagine it will only be matter of time before all these software packages becomes subject to advertising messages through subsequent upgrades too – such is the nature of upgrades. Cynical? Perhaps.

Viapost, which has yet to launch officially, sent out press releases in September last year. It has been fairly quiet si