Competition comes to mail delivery

Press, 19 April 1989, Page 37

Competition comes to mail delivery

By

NEVIN TOPP

An announcement by the Government of proposed changes to New Zealand’s postal regulations has prompted TNT Mailfast to publicise its activities in this country.

TNT Mailfast has officially begun bulk remailing and also delivering mail to businesses in certain cities. Last month, the Government announced that from October it would permit consolidating mail by forwarders, better known as bulk remailers, for overseas addresses. In this case this mail is carried overseas by the forwarders and put into a given country’s postal system. However, TNT Mailfast does not consider itself a bulk remailer, rather a private postal business, because it is also involved in delivering mail to businesses. TNT Mailfast has been bringing mail collected overseas into New Zealand for final posting for several years, but has not previously aggressively advertised its services because of the monopoly that N.Z. Post has had over the postal system. N.Z. Post’s manager for corporate communications, Mr Alan Meek, said bulk remailing had been “a grey area” for some time and the Government’s move had clarified the situation.

The Ministry of Commerce’s manager of telecommunications and postal policy, Mr Mike Lear, said the Ministry had received no complaints from N.Z. Post about the moves by bulk remailers, and he believed the Ministry was unlikely to.

If the bulk remailers were only taking mail out of the country, N.Z. Post would probably lodge a complaint, but because they also brought mail into New Zealand for posting to destinations within the country they generated additional revenue for the State corporation.

TNT Mailfast estimates that by its bringing into New Zealand mail collected overseas which pays domestic first-class postage, N.Z. Post receives about $3 million in revenue and profit in the next 12 months.

The company’s New Zealand national sales manager, Mr Peter Reidy, said that the firm had begun delivering directly to some customers in the Christchurch central business district.

Mr Reidy said that his company’s services were aimed at businesses that posted either 45 to 50 letters a week or Ikg of mail a week internationally. The system was already used by some of New Zealand’s largest companies, although the service was used by “a good cross-section” of this country’s businesses.

Annual reports of companies were one area that had found particular favour for bulk remailing, he said. Mr Reidy said that TNT Mailfast’s system was faster than that provided by the postal service. TNT’s international mailfast system handles more than 300 million letters annually, and the firm has 55 remail centres in 37 countries.