Royal Mail has extended its fully tracked international service Airsure to Australia following a19% year-on-year rise in export parcels sent from the UK to the country and also introduced a ‘
Delivered by Royal Mail’ mark to be printed on most of its letters and parcels in Britain.With the service extension to Australia, Royal Mail is responding to the growing number ofAustralian online shoppers buying from the UK retailers thus helping them better meet the needs ofcyber-buyers.
The 19% increase is the biggest growth in parcel services recorded by Royal Mail with Australiaemerging as its international export hotspot. Statistics released by HM Revenue and Customs havealso revealed that the UK’s non-EU exports rose by 16% to £1.9 billion between March 2011 and March2012. The export levels are the highest since the figures were first published in 1993,demonstrating that businesses are expanding their global reach, Royal Mail explained.
Royal Mail stressed the importance of online tracking to consumers with 80% of UK’s onlineshoppers preferring to receive updates at every stage of delivery.
Airsure provides full tracking from posting to delivery. Items receive priority handling as theyare transported through a secure network in the UK and abroad. This allows shoppers to track andfollow the progress of the item up to the point when it’s delivered.
Robert Woods, Royal Mail’s Head of International Products, said: “With today’s tech-savvyconsumers across the world looking for more affordable prices in other countries, it is essentialthat we support UK e-retailers to continually improve the online shopping experience for overseascustomers.”
Meanwhile, Royal Mail has officially launched its ‘Delivered by Royal Mail’ mark to be appliedto most of the 15 billion letters and parcels it ships annually.
“The UK is a very open postal market and many items are now handled by providers other thanRoyal Mail. It is important that customers and receiving households and businesses know thedifference between mail delivered by Royal Mail and its competitors,” the postal operatorexplained.
An independent poll of over 1,100 people showed that 77% of consumers would find it helpful toidentify which company had delivered which item of mail. In addition, when asked, 79% of postmenand women said they would welcome ‘Delivered by Royal Mail’ appearing on envelopes. The change isalso backed by the Communication Workers Union following eight months of negotiations.
The new mark will be applied through a change in the design of the Printed Postage Impression(PPI) – or postage-paid mark – printed on the envelope by mail users. While the changes to the PPIwill be effective from 23 June 2012, there is a six month period for migration up until 2nd January2013 to enable old stocks of stationery which do not have the “Delivered by Royal Mail” markprinted on them to be used up and the new PPI design to be adopted.
When fully implemented in January 2013, it is expected that more than 80% of all items RoyalMail delivers will carry the mark which equals around 12 billion shipments annually. That includesletters delivered to homes and businesses on behalf of wholesale ‘Downstream Access’ customers.Items that are sorted by hand will not carry the mark.
Royal Mail CEO Moya Greene said: “Delivering to 29 million addresses six days a week is a majortask. The new mark ensures that postmen and women get recognition for the vital task they completeevery working day.”
