French public postal operator La Poste has created a mail “observatory” to study the evolution ofpaper post as letter volumes decline across Europe due to increased dependence on the Internet.
The “mail and paper” observatory has been set up to evaluate the main mail categories –business mail, private correspondence, direct marketing and press – and will be overseen by amanagement board consisting of La Poste representatives, those of the Club Courrier association ofsuppliers of postal products and services, and individuals including academics and celebrities.
“The observatory will be composed of different interested ‘communities’ – economic andscientific,” said La Poste in a statement. “At a time when the Internet is developing and new mediais (supposedly) going to lead to the disappearance of mail, many observers remark that all thesemedia are complementary,” it added.
La Poste and the founders of the observatory, which came out of a Paris conference at the endof March, wanted to understand better the uses of mail and the opinions of its users, La Postesaid.
