Swiss Post does not plan any price increases for letters and parcels in 2011 but it will makecertain changes to some loss-making additional and specific services.
Most of these services are offered in competition with other providers. Measures that affect themonopoly services of Swiss Post are subject to approval by the Federal Department of theEnvironment, Transport, Energy and Communications (UVEK). The Swiss postal operator has submitted acorresponding request to UVEK and informed the price supervisory authority. The measures arescheduled to be implemented on 1 April 2011.
Swiss Post said it will pay itself the VAT increase of 0.4% coming into effect on 1 January2011. For business customers entitled to claim input tax deduction, this represents a virtual pricereduction of around CHF 4 million. The postal regulator regularly reviews its range of servicesboth for the reserved services related to its monopoly and for those provided in competition withother service providers. On this basis, it has adjusted its range of services each year. Somechanges to letter and product shipping are planned for 1 April 2011. These concern loss-makingniche and additional services as well as certain specific services.
For private customers, “Registered Mail” will in future be an additional service for A letterswhile the overall price will not change for the most requested registered letters. For businesscustomers, the prices for returning B business letters, journals and magazines with an invalidaddress will be calculated on the inducement basis. Swiss Post, on its part, provides businesscustomers with options to improve the quality of addresses used for mailings. This is intended toencourage business customers to keep their address databases up-to-date.
The additional service “Consignment tracking” (Track & Trace) will be introduced for thedispatch of debt collection documents. Furthermore, Swiss Post will launch a new paperless CODservice for parcels and letters. This will further simplify the business process for customers,Swiss Post said.
Moreover, the price for the additional service “Manual processing” for parcels with specialsizes, which can only be processed manually, will be increased slightly. The service forunaddressed promotional mailings (PromoPost) will also be adjusted as of 1 January 2011. Servicesand prices related to the P.O. box offering will be subject to new pricing.
Services that until now had been provided free of charge will continue to be offered for free.Changes in the service range and prices will also apply to express and bulk goods services. For thenext-day Swiss-Express “Moon” and the Swiss-Express courier “Lightning” services, the seconddelivery will be offered free of charge in future.
Prices for domestic and international letters and parcels included in Swiss Post’s standardrange will remain unchanged in 2011. Whereas prices were adjusted for parcels as of 1 April 2010,the prices for A and B Mail standard letters have not been increased in Switzerland since 2004.Studies show that Swiss Post’s letter and parcel prices are among the lowest in an internationalcomparison.
