Itella, the Finnish postal group, has signed up to provide delivery services for a new onlineshopping portal. Under the deal with Alma Media, Itella has been offering mailing and transport
services under the Posti consumer brand for users of the Mikko.fi website since September 15.At the Mikko.fi marketplace, owned and maintained by publishing group Alma Media, users cansell, buy, rent or auction goods and services. Both consumers and companies can act as sellers. Theoffers complement advertisements in Alma Media newspapers.
The web service places Itella’s parcel services comprehensively at the sellers’ disposal,including parcel address label printing, pricing and transport services. As a seller places aproduct for sale with the service, (s)he can select the required delivery method for it, price theitem and print an address label using a personal computer. Simultaneously, the information istransferred into Itella’s transport system.
The identifier on the address label allows both the recipient and the seller of the parcel totrack its route on the Internet, and advance notification of the arriving parcel will be sent as atext message or eLetter. The parcel will be delivered either directly to the recipient’s homeaddress or the nearest post office.
Later, the aim is to link further Itella services to the Mikko.fi service, in support ofbuying and selling on the Internet.
”The media industry and its development is vital to Itella. Therefore, this agreement oneCommerce co-operation with Alma Media is a new opening for the entire branch and we are excitedover this new type of partnership via the Mikko.fi portal”, comments Tarja Pääkkönen, VicePresident, Sales and Marketing, Itella Group.
“New expectations are associated with purchasing on the Web: in addition to basic issuesrelated to reliability, users value the experiential aspect and the ease of the transaction.Itella’s response to this is to develop innovative online purchasing services. This service conceptis unique in Finland, and both sellers and buyers benefit from the ease of use Mikko.fi offers”,says Pääkkönen.
