Tag: Spain

Spain’s online post office – www.correos.es – has just launched a new service which so far has received a great response: more than 600 orders in the first 20 days, mainly from small businesses. The new product, known as “Tu sello” (Your Stamp), allows both companies and private individuals to obtain their own personalised stamps, with images they provide themselves.

Nevertheless, not all photographs are valid. As the website explains they must not “show people, or violate morality, good habits or public order”; the photographs must respect “fundamental rights and public liberties, and not extol crime or discriminate by sex, race or religion”. Neither is illegal advertising allowed or images that breach copyright regulations.

The post office has established a minimum order of 200 stamps and a maximum of 3,000, and each stamp costs one euro. This includes the costs of postage.

The ordering process can be done entirely by internet. The first thing customers have to do is register on the Correos website; then go into the “Tu sello” section, upload the photograph to be used (in .jpg format and no bigger than 500 Kb) and select the field to declare that the user has the rights to the image. Then the user will be able to preview the stamp, edit the image and add a title or date. Finally payment can be made using a credit card, ePagado or PayPal. Then Correos will verify that the image complies with regulations.

To be fair, it must be pointed out that Correos does face tremendous difficulties in some areas, particularly new urbanisations, where road names have not been assigned nor houses numbered. Almost every day there is news of another mayor and his cronies in the town hall approving more developments which will vastly increase the populations of their areas. However, it doesn’t seem as if Correos ever gets any more staff. Now the state monopoly could be in for a big shake up. The European Commission has proposed changes in postal services by applying strict competition rules.

Consumers are likely to welcome the Commission’s moves to force competition into a vital service that clearly isn’t working properly in the many areas of Spain that have seen significant increases in the population over a relatively short period.

It was reported in November that the Spanish government was considering the proposals and that private postal operations might be able to use the Correos network to offer their services as competition was allowed. However, in competitive markets, prices can go up as well as down. Profit-driven businesses love delivering mail in cities and dense developments. No-one is interested in taking a birthday card to a person living in an isolated home up a long mountain track.