Correos will invest EUR 1.5 million for the purchase of 2,000 trucks and 499 sorting machines. Correos expects to improve the mail sorting process and intern transport between the Correos postal offices and depots.
Correos will also acquire 4 vans with 3.5 Tn. of capacity. The investment of these vehicles is € 150,000.
These acquisitions represent € 1.7 million and are part of Correos’s equipment renovation plan for 2007.
Read MoreMajor UK charities fear that the UK-wide postal strikes could reduce fundraising revenue.
Response rates are set to suffer because of the strikes, with some smaller charities likely to experience the biggest problems with income over the two-week strike period.
“The postal strike has not only delayed the appeals we have sent out to donors, but it has postponed incoming funds from those who want to help us support disabled people,” said Karen Barnes, head of direct marketing and legacies at Scope.
However, Barnes stressed that the charity had taken steps to ensure that the services it provides were not affected.
Geraldine Cetin, marketing manager for acquisitions at the Royal National Lifeboat Institution said that in combination with the recent flooding across large areas of the UK, the strikes could prove most detrimental to smaller charities, which lack the contingency funds of larger organizations.
As well as delays to campaigns, charities are concerned about the strike’s potential impact on response rates and subsequent income.
“If donors receive two-week’ worth of mail in a couple of days, response rates will decrease,” said Andrew Jones, head of direct marketing at the Royal British Legion. “The strike could mean that we have significantly reduced direct mail income for two weeks.”
Jones also highlighted problems with response management at mailing and fulfillment houses and disruption to planned campaigns as further issues.
Read MoreE-commerce in France is growing at 42 pct according to the French e-commerce association ACSEL. The industry turned over 2.7 billion Euros during the second quarter of 2007.
This growth is partly due to an increase in the number of e-retailers as well as French shoppers’ growing confidence in e-retail. Some 19 million people now shop online, an increase of 22 pct over the same period last year.
E-commerce in France is growing at 42 pct according to the French e-commerce association ACSEL. The industry turned over 2.7 billion Euros during the second quarter of 2007.
This growth is partly due to an increase in the number of e-retailers as well as French shoppers’ growing confidence in e-retail. Some 19 million people now shop online, an increase of 22 pct over the same period last year.
Further details of the French e-retail market is available (in French) on ACSEL’s site. A delegation from the Association will be visiting the Internet Retailing conference in London on 2 October and is keen to meet with UK e-retailers.
Read MoreRoyal Mail is to sell off a second multi-million pound property port-folio of post offices and sorting depots just months after concluding its first GBP 70m deal.
The state-owned postal service has appointed property agents Atisreal to undertake the sell off, which property professionals predict will contain a significant number of retail post offices, as well as industrial and office buildings.
Although many of the transactions are likely to be sale-and-leasebacks, the move to cut liabilities and generate cash from its property portfolio is likely to anger campaigners trying save the post office network in the face of planned closures.
The sale in March of 300 properties was a mixture of freeholds and leaseholds, some occupied some vacant, and was bought by Land Securities Trillium, the outsourcing arm of the largest property company in the UK.
Although the make up and size of the portfolio now being put together has not been defined the sale price could top GBP 20m.
With a countrywide property portfolio estimated to exceed GBP 2 bn in value, Royal Mail is in a position to realize a lot of value from its assets, as it implements a rationalization programme aimed at cutting losses and helping it compete against the private sector.
Read MoreOutBound Shipping System, a leading provider of automated carrier certified shipping software and solutions has today announced that it has received DHL certification for its shipping software, OutBound 6.12. The DHL certification process was introduced during the 1st quarter of 2007 and is a requirement for companies seeking to incorporate DHL services into existing shipping applications.
Since 1990, OutBound Shipping System has provided state-of-the-art shipping applications to medium and large enterprise businesses. These applications are designed to be easily integrated into existing in-house systems and databases. The cmpany focuses on building direct relationships with its clients to provide them with the most sophisticated .NET, C, and SQL shipping solutions available in the industry.
Currently, OutBound Shipping System’s multi-carrier certified shipping solution integrates United States Postal Service (USPS), Federal Express (FedEx) and United Parcel Service (UPS) products and services and also has a less than truckload (LTL) module. The latest edition will feature increased application functionality as well as full integration with DHL.
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