I received a six page market research survey from Australia Post – the Australian Lifestyle Survey – in the mail at my home last week. Checking around the office just about everyone received the same survey. By completing the survey and returning this to Australia Post by June 1 I can be in the running to win a Sony home theatre system and some other prices. The total prize pool is worth over $30,000.00.
The survey is also available online.
Australia Post wants this information so it can use the data to sell its direct mail services. Nothing wrong with that except that Australia Post is government owned. Anything it does is seen be many consumers as government endorsed, even encouraged. This provides the an imprimatur no other business can leverage. This is Australia Post abusing its government ownership.
Remember, this is the organisation which has entered the general retail space aggressively over the last ten or so years. The 863 government owned Australia Post stores take greeting card, stationery, computer supplies and other business from small business newsagents like mine. They do so behind the Australia Post shingle and leveraging the government endorsement. That my government does this to me and newsagents like me is appalling.
This survey which I received in the mail is another step in Australia Post’s pursuit of record profit and record shareholder return – to their one shareholder, the Australian Government.
Government owned Australia Post is, in my view, operating way outside the functions permitted under the Act which governs its operations.
I hope complete the survey with useless data.
Great article, that was interesting
I agree totally, and what an abusive waste of paper, not only from the original mail out but also the subsequent marketing from the comapanies Aus Post will sell the information to. You are practically inviting the tele-marketers to call you by filling it out.
Watch out you receive endless phone calls from teh companies they sell the data to, be very careful.
As a consumer I always try to support a newsagent ahead of Australia Post. In South Melbourne the Australia Post company store has now introduced their first ATM i’ve seen. What gap are tehy filling by offering a sixth ATM brand in park st, south Melbourne- in one of Melbournes most affluent suburbs already with all bank atm’s well represented in walking distance. It further highlight their poor business decisions. I further resent Australia Post also using their monopoly to take scarce car parking in streets – Mark i’ll send a sep email on this to you.
not all australian post offices are government owned, some of them are licensed post offices meaning that they are a franchise business with more leverage than the government owned post offices
Yes Maria, as I note in the original post, this is about the 863 Government owned post offices.
I just wish they could leverage more eftpos flexibility. Seems nobody’s system will allow an eftpos transaction for $9.90.
Surely the franchisees can be more flexible?
I won’t give our local the commission for stamps or postage because of their attitude towards it, let alone their inability to be flexible.
Y & G
Its not that LPOs choose to be inflexible on this it is actually set centrally by the Australia Post through their software. There is no legitimate mechanism to side step this that doesn’t breach their licensee agreements in some way. The only viable alternative an LPO has is to set up a stand alone EFTPOS terminal, though i’m not sure how commercially viable this would be for many.