Tag: Europe

Royal Mail reveals direct mail dip

Posted by | Mar 21, 2007 | |

The Royal Mail has released figures which show that direct mail volumes and expenditure are falling.

Volumes for 2006 were down to 5.03 billion items, a 2.1 per cent drop on last year’s figures. Total expenditure dropped from GBP2.37bn in 2005 to GBP2.32bn in 2006. Quarterly comparisons show volumes for October to December 2006 down 4.6 per cent on the corresponding quarter last year.

Royal Mail officials remain bullish, however, despite the results.

Leonora Corden, head of market development at Royal Mail argues: “This is the result of companies across all sectors improving their targeting to create even more relevant and personal offers for their customers and prospects.”

The company cites a growing reliance on direct mail by a number of industry sectors, including building societies, charities, government, health, media and insurance. Also noticeable is a rise in the volume of direct mail sent to the 55-64 year old age group.

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RFID gives City Link customers real-time tracking

Posted by | Mar 20, 2007 | |

Delivery company City Link has installed 15,000 Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags on its parcel cages to improve efficiency and speed up its delivery services. The company now plans to work with clients to provide real-time tracking solutions.

The Wi-Fi based Active RFID solution was installed by AeroScout (a US company), and JDH Consultancy at City Link’s depots around the UK. The rugged tags manage the company’s dynamic inventory of ‘roll cages’, which house and protect its high-value parcels during transit.

At any moment in time, up to 300,000 parcels in 15,000 cages at 70 UK locations can be monitored and located in real-time from City Link’s National Distribution Centre in Wednesbury, West Midlands, over the City Link Cisco Wi-Fi network.

RFID technology has been available for a long time but the cost of the tags and implementation have made its use prohibitive for tracking small, low value items. The costs are reducing and its use in logistics and item tracking is continued to increase. Marks & Spencer can track individual items and a German bookstore is using the technology within boxes of books.

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GBP 2m investment keeps TNT Sameday in Pole Position in the UK

Posted by | Mar 20, 2007 | |

The instant-response arm of Britain’s leading business-to-business express delivery company has unveiled a multi-million pound investment programme to keep the business at the top of the ‘Premier League’ of the UK same day delivery market.

The GBP 2 million initiative will see an innovative deployment of TNT Sameday’s army of 1,700 drivers, a new web-based Storapart distribution service designed to enhance speedy despatch of parts to engineers plus the introduction of state-of-the-art ‘mobile worker’ units to each driver. Each element is viewed as a critical component in the TNT drive for customer service excellence in 2007.

At the touch of a key, the new Common Operating System will automatically calculate parcel delivery rates, recommend the closest driver available for a collection and allocate drivers’ payments.

The new warehouse stock management system of TNT’s Storapart service – called Storapart Distribution System (SDS) – creates a common approach across TNT the Storapart sites throughout the world, providing a consistently high level of customer service.

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RFID anywhere improves postal delivery service quality

Posted by | Mar 20, 2007 | |

Correos, the Spanish Postal Service — Correos handles over 5 billion postal deliveries each year and serves over 19 million homes and 2 million companies a day. The company has implemented an RFID system using RFID Anywhere to improve its delivery times and streamline operating procedures.

Correos has successfully implemented the largest RFID project in Europe. The state-controlled company has introduced a radio frequency control system, called Q-RFID, in its 15 Automated Processing Centres (APCs) throughout Spain. The company’s investment included specific software and its integration in the Correos computer systems, purchasing 5,000 passive electronic labels and installation of over 1,900 permanent antennas and over 330 readers for those 15 APCs.

The acquisition of this solution enables Correos to have cutting edge technology which complies with the standards set by the European Union (ETSI EN 302 208-1 and EPC GEN 2) and was approved at state level by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade. The technology ensures quality control and the traceability of postal deliveries (packets, correspondence and mailbags). Controlling the quality of the delivery time is fundamental for Correos, given the large area in which it operates and the dispersion of the delivery addresses.

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Germany's Deutsche Post wants Europe to open markets

Posted by | Mar 20, 2007 | |

Deutsche Post’s monopoly on letter delivery will end next year. Even as the company struggles to remain profitable, most other European Union countries are reluctant to liberalize their mail markets.

Deutsche Post stocks fell 6 percent Tuesday after the company announced its 2007 earnings will fall short of predictions.

Europe’s largest mail service provider has tried to diversify and take a more international approach in recent years.

At the same time, many other EU countries have dragged their feet on liberalizing their own mail monopolies. Deutsche Post said it’s worried this attitude will put them at a disadvantage.

Domestic postal services in EU countries are scheduled to be completely opened to competition by 2009. The bloc also wants to open the market for letters under 50 grams (1.8 ounces) to private carriers and thereby get rid of state postal monopolies.

Deutsche Post CEO Klaus Zumwinkel has used profits from the traditional mail service to transform the company into a major player in the global transport and logistics market.

Still, delivering letters remains a vital part of the Deutsche Post. Even with the company’s big push in recent years into international logistics, freight and express mail, normal mail delivery remains responsible for 25 percent of the company’s gross income, and more than 60 percent of its profit.

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