Tag: Royal Mail

Arab countries agree to start money transfer exchanges

Posted by | Aug 5, 2008 | |

In Geneva to attend the 24th Universal Postal Congress, the postal leaders of Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen signed an agreement that will see them start exchanging money transfers electronically.
As with other regional projects, the money transfer service relies on the UPU’s IFS application and international financial network.

Launched by the Arab League and implemented by a regional steering committee chaired by Emirates Post, the project, also supported by the French Post, will allow the postal operators involved to exchange money orders on a multilateral basis from now on.

The new service furthers the UPU’s efforts to improve access to secure and reliable money transfer services through formal channels for rural populations, and especially for migrant workers.

Explains Emirate Post’s Nasser Fathi Sadiq Qaddoumi, Chairman of the steering committee: The multilateral agreement is giving the Arab region – with some countries in Asia and others in Africa – a push to provide better services to migrant workers. For example, more than 80 pct of the United Arab Emirates population of 5.8 million people consists of foreigners, and the situation in other Gulf countries is not much different, says Qaddoumi.

Other Arab countries said they would join the regional network by the end of this year.

A similar regional project is expected to start next week with countries from North Eastern Africa.

Read More

Global monitoring system gets the green light

Posted by | Aug 5, 2008 | |

The UPU will focus its efforts on finalising a new global monitoring system for the quality of service, which is expected to become operational in 2010.
Member countries unanimously adopted a proposal to develop and implement a global monitoring system to evaluate the quality of service for incoming priority letter-post items and the quality of service link to terminal dues (what countries pay each other for processing each other’s incoming international mail). The system will also be used to evaluate how successful postal operators are in improving their quality of service through projects financed by the UPU’s Quality of Service Fund.

Independent external auditors will measure the quality of service by sending priority letter-post test items through the network of participating postal operators. Using RFID technology, the system will measure the time an operator takes to deliver test items from the time these items are handed over. The system will then compare the results with the designated UPU body’s delivery standards for incoming international letter post, which will be compatible with each designated postal operator’s published domestic delivery standards.

A pilot project to evaluate possible RFID technical solutions was conducted with three Gulf-region countries, namely Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, from March to June this year. The UPU has now launched a call for tender to identify the solution that will be used for the global monitoring system.

“The UPU has made great efforts over the years to improve the quality of service, but we must improve across the board,” said Carlos da Silva from Portugal, which fully supported the proposal. “The system will imply a great deal of investment but it is worth it, and I believe everyone should do their bit.”

Read More

Royal Mail to run obesity campaign (UK)

Posted by | Aug 5, 2008 | |

Further to Royal Mail’s own direct mail marketing campaign, the postal provider is to deliver a direct marketing campaign for the government.

The campaign will be aimed at tackling child obesity and is thought to be worth GBP£75 million, according to Brand Republic.

Department of health figures have shown that almost one in four children of school-starting-age are overweight.

Royal Mail head of government marketing James McGruer says direct mailing will make more people aware of the problem.

A recent survey showed that direct mail was the most effective way of communicating with the public as far as the health sector goes.

Over half (52 per cent) of respondents said they used the mail to communicate all important health information, while only 24 per cent used email.

The effectiveness of any direct mailing campaign can be increased by personalising the addressing of correspondence.

Marketers should always ensure the quality of data they hold is as high as possible to ensure a campaign’s success.

Read More

Wrongly addressed mail damages brands says Veridata (UK)

Posted by | Aug 4, 2008 | |

Veridata says that mailing out millions of pieces of direct mail needs to be done responsibly and that it can be a waste of money as well as actually damage a company’s reputation by delivering to the wrong address/recipient effectively becoming an annoyance rather than a way to reach potential buyers.

Veridata, which specialises in providing data capture solutions, says that that around 10 pct of all direct mail fails to even reach its target and that 13 pct of the population move very year. With pressure on direct marketing companies to update mailing lists and reduce the volume of paper that goes to landfill, accurate databases are essential says Veridata.

The UK government has already asked the direct marketing industry to get its house in order or face sweeping measures to curb what some householders and business see as a deluge of unwanted and irrelevant sales literature, and much of the problem is down to companies using old or outdated mailing lists.

Veridata handles returned mail from marketing campaigns, extracting the contents, scanning relevant address, verifying and collating the data and then returns this information to direct marketers to provide up-to-date information which reduces waste.

‘Stop Junk Mail’, the main lobby group calling for strict limitations on junk mail, says that people can reduce the amount they get through their door by opting out. Royal Mail which is the single largest distributor of door-to-door mail does have an opt-out facility although it warns that you could lose important information distributed by local authorities and other organisations.

Read More

UK Mail Costs Priced Daily by Swedish Software

Posted by | Aug 4, 2008 | |

21grams iSort product utilises the commercial offerings from the various postal operators and optimises the mail on a day by day basis to minimise postal costs by splitting a particular day’s posting the most cost effective way between the different postal operators and tariffs available at that time.

iSort is a ‘soft’ solution that sits in the mail creation process and sorts the mail electronically into the cheapest solution before its sent to the printer. Then it simply comes off the printers and inserting machines in the correct order and is ready for the post.

iSort is already success in its home country of Sweden, and Swedish business is benefiting with optimised and cheaper mail on a day by day basis. Currently 10 pct of all Swedish mail goes through iSort customers today.

iSort beat over 100 other technical innovative products in the mail industry this year to win the Global Mail technology award in Budapest in June. As well as the Swedish and UK home markets, iSort is being released into the German and Dutch markets in 2009. There is also an international product for optimising overseas mail going to multiple overseas markets.

21Grams are currently offering free analysis of mailing lists to businesses to allow them to benchmark their costs against the various UK postal solutions and to show just how cheap post really could be using this technology. Postal discounts and cheap business mail are the order of the day for every business in the current economic climate.

Read More

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

P&P Poll

Loading

How ready do you feel for the de minimis changes coming in July?

Thank you for voting
You have already voted on this poll!
Please select an option!




View ResultsHide Results

Post & Parcel Magazine


Post & Parcel Magazine is our print publication, released 3 times a year. Packed with original content and thought-provoking features, Post & Parcel Magazine is a must-read for those who want the inside track on the industry.

Subscribe to the Magazine

 

Pin It on Pinterest