Australia Post and New Zealand Post yesterday teamed up to grow e-commerce between their twocountries and help SMEs develop their international business by simplifying exports across the
Tasman Sea.Under the three-year strategic agreement, the two postal operators will collaborate toprovide small businesses with customer acquisition and direct marketing support, parcel deliveryand returns management. Australian and New Zealand SMEs will obtain market insights and customerdata, including targeted sales leads by customer profile and location, and will benefit from thepostal operators’ international direct marketing and fulfilment capabilities.
In addition, they will be offered competitive international parcel delivery rates. AustralianSMEs, for example, will be able to send items up to 2kg for a flat rate of $15 to anywhere in NewZealand through Australia Post Express Courier International.
New Zealand Post noted that the deal represented a major business win as it had gained theexclusive Express Mail Service (EMS) and parcels business with Australia Post.
Australia Post’s Executive General Manager of Parcel & Express Services, Richard Umbers,said Australia Post had a strong track record of helping businesses in Australia grow online andwith e-commerce booming it was now more feasible than ever for online businesses to make the leapacross the Tasman Sea.
“All the research is predicting double-digit annual growth in online spending through to2020. Capturing almost 80 per cent of all online spending, small businesses are the growth engineof e-commerce,” Umbers said. “In partnership with New Zealand Post, we can provide businessesaccess to our combined network, logistics capacity and market insights to give them the confidenceto reach new markets. We can now offer 1.9 million prospective customers in New Zealand the directmarketing and fulfilment support needed to turn leads into sales.”
New Zealand Post’s General Manager Business Development & Strategy, Sohail Choudhry, saidthe partnership offers benefits on both sides of the Tasman. “This is a great opportunity forAustralian online businesses to test the global market by starting in New Zealand. The size,demographics and popularity of online shopping in New Zealand make it an ideal test market forinternational expansion.”
New Zealand businesses accessing the Australian market will also profit from substantialservice and price benefits as they aim to carve out a piece of the large online market inAustralia, Choudry added.
“New Zealand businesses will have access to the full range of Australia Post marketing andcustomer data. Not only can we offer end-to-end supply chain solutions into Australia, we canhelp customers grow their market across the Tasman. We don’t just ship their products – New Zealandbusinesses will receive the full benefit of Australia Post’s powerful customer identification anddirect marketing capability as well as full supply chain services.”
The two managers also highlighted the wider international potential from their partnership asboth operators were developing international growth strategies to take advantage of the onlineshopping boom. “Our combined network reach, logistics capacity and market information is a greatcombination which will benefit customers on both sides of the Tasman,” they said.
“Joining forces with New Zealand Post enables both organisations to grow our business fromAustralasia to the rest of the world and globally into Australasia. This supports both companies’ambitions to grow international markets, and will greatly benefit our customers looking to accessthose markets,” Umbers added.
Separately, New Zealand Post will also simplify its parcel packaging by offering a range of ‘postage included’ bags for shipping items up to 3kg within New Zealand.
* New Zealand Post will this week launch the government-backed RealMe online identifyverification service, involving online registration and a check at a PostShop. People with a RealMeaccount will be able to use a single login to access various government and private sector onlineservices. NZ Post stressed that it would not store private identity information and would not beable to see which services the users access.
