The International Post Corporation (IPC) has rolled out a ‘harmonised parcel label’ to help postal operators simplify and speed up cross-border deliveries by getting rid of the current ‘over-labelling’ of international parcels.
The new label will present significant improvements for e-retailers and consumers, by reducing over-labelling while also improving track and trace, quality and transit times, and facilitating delivery, the association said today.
The new label incorporates a single barcode based on a common postal standard, standardised address data, a dedicated section to include the e-seller’s specific elements and a dedicated section for relevant operational instructions, represented by standardised symbols.
IPC explained that the presence of multiple labels and barcodes on a parcel has long complicated and slowed down the handling and distribution process of international deliveries. Therefore the association worked together with its member posts to develop and implement a harmonised labelling solution, ensuring uniformity based on the existing standard barcode, using a set of standardised address elements, icons and layouts.
Alan Barrie, Director, Operations & Technology, commented: “This is not just a technical initiative to align the essential data elements underpinning e-commerce fulfilment, it’s also a practical visual alignment to give thousands of postal workers clear instructions on how to deal with the rapidly growing e-commerce volumes. Customers are demanding the same experience cross-border that they enjoy in their home country and this is a great initiative by postal companies to improve the consistency of their service offer.”
The harmonised label technical capability is fully rolled out and posts are expected to start using the harmonised label by early 2016. It is available as part of the INTERCONNECT initiative of posts to improve cross-border parcel operations.
IPC explained that the harmonised label was designed and developed to enable postal operators to optimise the end-to-end processing of international letter packages and parcels. During the development process, address data elements and address layout were assessed and defined. Moreover, a standard set of symbols in support of operations was designed. Further assessments for item identification led to the decision to use the UPU S10 Barcode as a single standardised item identifier to appear on the label.
Different variants of harmonised labels have been designed to cover requirements concerning letter package labels, parcel labels, and labels with integrated postal forms CN22 or CN23 to facilitate customs clearance.
On 14 September 2015 IPC rolled out the Harmonised Label IT Service to support INTERCONNECT participants that chose not to implement the full technical capability to create the Harmonised Label in-house. The IT Service was developed in collaboration with three posts that registered to use the system from the start, but other interested INTERCONNECT participants can subscribe to use the Harmonised Label IT Service as well.
