Swiss Post will put up prices for certain additional services and specific offerings from 1April onwards, as already announced in December 2010 and following official approval for the
increases.The Swiss postal operator said certain price and service adjustments are part of its ongoingproduct range revision. “These adjustments are necessary in order to achieve results which are inline with industry-standard in the individual markets and to allow the Group units to operate on afinancially independent basis.”
The adjustments will affect niche products and specific offerings for business customers. A andB standard letters, B individual shipments and parcels will not be affected. Swiss Post hasreceived the necessary approval from the Department for the Environment, Transport, Energy andCommunication (UVEK) for the price adjustments to postal items weighing up to 50 g and newspapers,which benefit from press subsidies.
As part of the adjustments, “Registered Mail” will in future be an additional service for Aletters and subject to a CHF 4 surcharge on top of the regular A Mail price. For the most popularcategory of registered letters weighing up to 100 g, the total price will remain unchanged at CHF5, while the cost of mailing heavier letters will increase. The price for the additional service“manual processing” for parcels with special dimensions will rise from CHF 3 to CHF 4.
For business customers, B bulk mail shipments will comprise fewer weight categories. Swiss Postis introducing electronic cash-on-delivery service enabling simpler processing. In future, it willbe less expensive to send A letters with the “Track & Trace” service and the liability limitwill be lowered. For the newly offered dispatch of debt collection documents with the added-valueoption “Track & Trace”, UVEK has approved a price of CHF 8.
According to the findings of the latest letter and parcel post indices compiled at theUniversity of Fribourg, Swiss Post’s letter and parcel prices are still among the lowest in aEuropean comparison while its service quality remains at a high level. In 2010, Swiss Post’s letterand parcel delivery services once again scored very highly in terms of punctuality with 97.2% of Aletters and 98.5% of B letters reaching their recipients on time. The results were similar forparcel deliveries with 97.7% of all PostPac Priority items and 97.5% of all PostPac Economy itemsdelivered punctually in 2010. As a result, Swiss Post holds a leading position by internationalcomparison.
