Russian Post has launched its own online sales and delivery marketplace, reached high performance levels for its new next-day delivery service and is investing further in operational improvements.
The official partner for the seasonal catalogue is Costmart, a local retailer comprising experts on the e-commerce market with working experience at the biggest internet shops of the country. As part of the cooperation agreement, all orders will be transferred from Costmart to the automated sorting centre of Russian Post in Podolsk skipping the processing at the post offices, which will simplify and speed up the delivery process.
Customer can order up to five products weighing up to seven kg per delivery, either online via 2015.russianpost.ru or at any of Russian Post’s 42,000 post offices across the country. The order can be paid via bank transfer on the website or in cash at the post office. A 13-digit number is attributed to each order so it can be tracked online.
“Russian Post plans to develop the idea of its own market place creating the logical synergy with the postal business which connects the client on the one hand and the producer / seller on the other,” said Inessa Galaktionova, Deputy General Director of Russian Post, responsible for postal business.
“According to the results of a pilot project related to order and delivery of New Year gifts conducted at the end of 2014, around 200,000 orders were placed in 44 days of sales. The project allowed Russian Post to test the technology of creating interaction between an online retailer and consumer, to analyse the consumer preferences in terms of product segments, delivery types, the average purchase amount as well as to compare the effectiveness of online and offline channels,” she explained.
“The launch of the second pilot project – the seasonal product catalogue – is the next step towards the creation of our own market place enabling us to test seasonal demand. For our customers, we have selected a wide range of products with the best price / performance ratio.”
In terms of express mail (EMS) deliveries across Moscow, Russian Post said it has reached a high delivery quality score of 97% for its “Next Day” service launched in 2014, thanks to optimising the handling process of the express shipments and the expansion of delivery routes as well as permanent shipment monitoring.
“Next Day has become very popular among the residents of Moscow in the shortest period of time, therefore we have implemented it in all Russian cities offering EMS courier delivery. The quality of next day delivery of shipments to other cities is the same as in the capital,” Sergey Malyshev, Russian Post Deputy General Director, Parcels and Express, said. Ten of thousands of Russian Post customers have used the service.
Russian Post is also moving ahead with various operational improvements. The operator recently signed an agreement with Rosnano for implementing nanotechnology to improve efficiency. This will see the implementation of RFID shipment monitoring technology for its operations. During the initial cooperation phase signed in 2014 and supported by the Universal Postal Union (UPU), Russian Post started deploying the RFID technology which helped increase the control over the incoming international correspondence at all stages of delivery.
The test results showed that the RFID technology can be efficient for controlling the supply chains of mail within the country enabling the operator to increase the productivity of postal workers when conducting individual tasks by more than 10%. As part of the new agreement, 15 postal facilities will be equipped with the technology to control the internal mail flows while identifying and removing the "bottlenecks" in the supply chain and reducing delivery times.
Meanwhile, Russian Post has signed up Siemens to provide the sorting equipment for its logistics centre in St. Petersburg and to train Russian Post’s employees to operate the equipment. The postal operator said the new contract will generate over 50% in savings compared to the previous service period thanks to improving the purchasing procedures and better staff training.
“In order to efficiently deliver letters and parcels to the Russian population, Russian Post implements the most advanced sorting and processing equipment at its postal logistics centres. It is very important for us that Siemens, a world-famous company, is ready not only to ensure the maintenance of the equipment but also to share its competency with our production personnel,” Aleksey Skatin, Russian Post Deputy General Director, said.
Separately, Russian Post has leased 101 parcel delivery vehicles from Kamaz to renew its delivery fleet as part of the governmental programme “Utilisation of transport means” and reduce the maintenance costs of transport in the freight segment.
“By purchasing more than 100 new cars, we renew our fleet of KAMAZ vehicles by 60% – this will help us improve delivery indicators and further optimise costs,” Dmitry Strashnov, Russian Post General Director, said. “Until 2018, we plan to spend RUB 20 billion (€325.5 million) on developing our transport and logistics infrastructure, including the renewal of 10,000 vehicles and the purchase of about 400 trains with increased capacity." Currently, Russian Post deploys around 14,000 vehicles in its mail and parcel operations and counts a total of 17,000 transport means in its network.
