Australia Post

Yes, they are. Page 4 of their current catalogue.

This is a wholly government owned and protected commercial business, a monopoly, competing with private businesses.

I don’t see how selling bras fits within the regulations of what Australia Post is permitted to sell.

Australia Post just sent out this comms:

These times really are unlike anything we’ve seen before and as you know, our network continues to be under increased pressure with parcel volumes at Christmas levels. And this is amplified in Victoria where we continue to manage a heavily reduced workforce due to the impact of the Delta strain.

The safety of our people is our highest priority, one which we will not compromise on, and in these circumstances we have had to make some difficult decisions for our Greater Melbourne Metro operations only which will impact you

We can assure you services provided for Express Post, Premium, Startrack Express, domestic and international letters remain unchanged across our network, as does processing for all international inbound and outbound. Street Post Boxes (SPBs) will also continue to be collected.

Post Offices will remain open for all usual business, and collections in regional Victoria and all other states remain the same.

For eParcel and Parcel Post, all pickups, collections and business lodgements in Greater Melbourne Metro will be paused for five days, from 12.01am Friday 1 October to 12.01am Wednesday 6 October.

Normal medical shipments (normally lodged Parcel Post) will still be accepted subject to confirmation and by arrangement.

Our teams nationally will continue to operate, with deliveries continuing every day including weekends, and we will leverage support from other states to assist our team in Melbourne to remain safe and return to a safe and manageable level of parcel volumes.

We’re sorry for the inconvenience

We do sincerely apologise for the inconvenience this may place on you and your customers. We fully appreciate the recent pause we had a few weeks ago was challenging for you and again thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as we continue to navigate these challenges together.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact us with any queries via your Account Manager and continue to check auspost.com.au/service-updates for the latest information on impacts across our network.

Stay safe,

Gary Starr
Executive General Manager
Business, Government & International

Given the delays of the last few weeks it was clear they were not clearing the backlog.

With online key to the survival of plenty of retailers, I suspect there will be plenty frustrated by this move.

A few weeks after Australia Post was in the news with a report it was considering 7 day delivery and 24 hours after a news report in Victoria of a flood of Father’s Day deliveries, we received an Australia Post notice at our Hawthorn office advising mail deliveries will now be every second day, until mid 2021.

The Christmas catalogue from Australia Post strays far from the core remit of the organisation, as usual. While I have no issue with LPOs doing this, I do have an issue with government owned and protected corporate stores doing this, taking revenue from family businesses. Their toy pitch is interesting. A bit bland in my view, but interesting nevertheless.

Australia Post corporate stores tap into benefits not available to small business competitors. For example, major landlord do not place on them the same requirements of indie retailers.

Australia Post corporate store outlets can land shoppers in their businesses for a lower cost with the core monopoly services they offer. This makes customer acquisition cost for add on purchases, like games, lower.

I wrote a post back in 2013 that relates to the issue of Australia Post straying from its core remit. here it is:

An open letter to John Stanhope, Chairman Australia Post
Mark Fletcher
July 3rd, 2013 · 15 Comments

I was moved to write this open letter to John Stanhope, Chairman of Australia Post, after reading the article in The Australian Financial Review yesterday on page 22.

Dear John,

The feature article about you in The Australian Financial Review yesterday says that a big part of your job is persuading politicians that the rules around Post’s obligations need to be loosened – to align with a world in which “there is a younger generation, many of whom wouldn’t have written a letter, let alone post a letter.”

Really? You want the rules changed because the world has changed? You want your shareholder to protect you even more?

Hmm, let’s see how this goes – you go talk to your sole shareholder, the federal government, and ask them to change the rules to suit you, so you can pay the dividend they require.  The conflict is obvious.

I am surprised you want regulatory change as that has not stopped you doing what you want in the past.

It’s a changing and unfair world John. As your organisation has though your actions in opening retail outlets close to newsagents and expanding into non post related traditional to newsagency products, taking revenue from small family businesses and leveraging your government protected brand to achieve this.

I say Australia Post has abused its protected position to compete with small business newsagents through your corporate stores. Ink, book, cards, gifts – all sorts of items being sold by the post office. I have written about this here many times.

One of my own newsagencies faced stiff competition from one of your government owned stores. We were price compared by your public servants on more than one occasion for the purpose of competition. This government owned and protected retail business was trying hard to take sales from us.

And now you say the rules need to change to protect you.

The rules should not change, not in isolation. You can’t have it both ways – protected when you want and given more flexibility when you want. If there is to be a review of the rules under which you operate your whole engagement with the act needs to be assessed and publicly debated.

But before we have that debate we need to look at your ownership. Having the government owned business competing with commercial businesses is unfair. You need to get out of retail – sell them to local newsagents at a price that accounts for the damage you have done over the years.   You need to sell off your commercial courier business.

The government should only own and operate services that are not otherwise commercially viable yet which are considered an essential services for the community.

I accept you have challenges with the old print post model. They’re not new, they have been coming for ten years at least. I’d say this is why you have targeted newsagents in your corporate retail businesses over the last six to eight years. We were a soft target and you got away with taking our customers by using your monopoly.

John, what you have is a bloated retail network getting special treatment because of government ownership and taking special treatment by, in my view, operating outside the Act. It’s not a level playing field comparing the treatment of a government owned Australia Post shop and a newsagency in a shopping centre.

It frustrates me that the AFR gives you such excellent coverage when the backbone of retail in Australia, small business retailers, struggle to get issues of concern to them exposed in the media.

I hope the politicians refuse to change the rules under which you operate.

If you want to talk about this call me on 0418 321 338. I’d welcome the opportunity.

Mark Fletcher

This tweet from yesterday reflects the core message of a campaign for fair compensation for postal franchisees:

2900 Postal Franchisees are working 60+ hrs a week, earning as little as $5 per hour, sweatshop conditions @auspost ? This is an essential service, are you on their side @ScottMorrisonMP , maybe not? HAVING A GO, BUT NOT GETTING A GO! @M_McCormackMPpic.twitter.com/44S7CkSt2D

— Madero (@fuwap15) October 7, 2018

For almost twenty years Australia Post corporate stores have been reaching beyond selling postal and allied products, stepping into categories newsagencies and other family run businesses rely on.

What bothers me about this is that it is the government owned businesses acting to take business from small businesses. They do this by leveraging their government ownership, landing shoppers for a lower cost than is often the case for independent retailers and with overheads that are often less than for independent retailers.

I have written to many politicians about this, without success. While some letters have led to meetings, they have not resulted in any action.

The Australia Post corporate stores continue to offer products unrelated to postal services. They take revenue that could have otherwise benefited local family-owned businesses.

Successive governments have given in to big business and sold off government assets, but not the Australia Post retail network.

What I wrote to the then Minister for Small Business, Fran Bailey, in 2006 about an Australia Post catalogue holds true  today:

With respect, Australia Post owned retail outlets do not operate on a “level playing field”.  Australia Post has the government owned and supported Australia Post brand and exclusive Australia Post products and services with which to pull traffic for a very low cost per customer.

For decades, Australia Post stuck to post products and services.  Now, with a considerably broader retail offering, the benefits of its exclusive brand and post products provide an unfair advantage.

Australia Post offers products which I consider are not permitted under the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989.  I urge you to look at the enclosed Christmas stars at Australia Post catalogue.  Over the twelve pages, I counted one hundred and fourteen items which I consider to fall outside of what is permitted under the Act.  Consider this selection:

• Faber Castell drawing kit (pg1)
• Jamie Oliver Books (pg1)
• Dinnerwear Gift etc (pg1)
• Binoculars (pg1)
• Picnic Packs (pg2)
• Maps (pg2)
• Gardening Aust. Magazine books (pg2)
• Brite Lanterns (pg2)
• Vtech Kid Challenge game (pg3)
• Learning Card Fun Packs (pg3)
• Floor Puzzles (pg3)
• First Words & Dictionary Packs (pg3)
• Various items of plush (pg3)
• Book packs (pg4)
• Music CDs (pg4)
• Photo album (pg5)
• Social stationery items (pg5)
• Cookbooks (pg5)
• Children’s craft packs (pg6)
• Kids stationery set (pg6)
• PlayStation games (pg6)
• Pencil and pen sets (pg6)
• Chess set (pg7)
• AM/FM radio (pg7)
• Sudoku game (pg7)
• Calendars (pg8)

These products, and others in the catalogue, are not incidental to nor do they relate to the supply of postal services.  They are products outside what the Act permits.  Of course, this comes down to interpretation.  But what do Cookbooks, Gardening Australia magazine books, Chess Sets and Binoculars have to do with what is permitted under the Act?

For decades Australia Post was profitable without selling calendars, greeting cards and the broad range of stationery it offers today yet now it seems that Australia Post and the Government consider such product categories essential to its commercial viability.  I would have thought that the postal product offering ought to be viable as a stand alone business – it is a monopoly after all.

Australia Post is using its powerful brand and exclusive postal products to draw traffic into Government owned stores and away from independent small businesses like mine.  Is this an outcome that the Government wants?  Is the Government happy to ignore the pleas of small business so that its own national retail network profits?

For decades, newsagents were profitable while they had a monopoly on the distribution of newspapers and magazines.  In 1999 the Government facilitated the deregulation of the distribution of newspapers and magazines.  As we have lost the benefits of exclusive traffic as a result of this deregulation, Australia Post has increased its range of newsagent type lines and thereby very successfully leveraged its continued exclusivity to more effectively compete with us.

The Government is profiting at the expense of my newsagency and other businesses like mine which compete directly with a Government owned Australia Post outlet, yet the Government refuses to even acknowledge that I may possibly be right.  In response to my letters documenting breaches of the Act all I receive is vague government-speak.

In my September letter I said that “Australia Post is our drought”.  A review of their Christmas catalogue illustrates how much this is the case.  For many years now it has been draining newsagencies of revenue.  Many are close to death as a result.

This is a very serious problem, causing families much heartache.  Please take notice.  Please understand that Australia Post is stealing our customers by straying from what is permitted under the Act and that its behavior, under your watch, makes a mockery of your claimed support for small business.

I urge the Government to amend the Australian Postal Corporation Act 1989 to limit what Australia Post can sell through its own retail outlets and to names postal items such as envelopes and Post branded packaging materials.  Such would be the action of a Government committed to small business.

Looking back and thinking about the many letters Ms Bailey and plenty of there ministers in governments of all colours would have received along similar lines, it is clear to me that politicians talk about small business but often fail to act.

It is shameful that Australia Post government owned stores continue to trade today in plenty of categories they should not touch.

Yesterday, I heard a radio interview with the head of an association representing Licensed Post Office (LPO) businesses in which they canvassed taking action against Australia Post for fair pay. They outlined the current model and, in particular, a decline in gross profit because of constraints in their agreement with Australia Post and because of the way they are compensated for selling stamps.

The association made a submission to a recent Senate inquiry and say they were promised a resolution by Australia Post. This has not been forthcoming. Hence their engagement with the media advocating their position.

One example was given that a $800.00 lift in revenue resulted in around $150.00 in gross profit. They said that is not acceptable given the labour model required under the Australia Post contract.

The core argument I heard was that they earned less than an award wage for doing work covered by an award.

While this is an LPO fight, newsagents may find it interesting, especially if they do take legal action.

This sponsored tweet from Australia Post speaks to the extent of change in the retail side of the challenged business.

Now more than ever in the history of specialty retail we are living in borderless times.

Change is vital to the future of every retail business.

How is this for a tweet to re-tweet? I love it, especially in relation to the government owned post offices – retail businesses they should not operate except from offering basic postal services.

Peter Ford has 10,000 Twitter followers. I responded to him as did others at the time of his tweet.

I would not be surprised to see Australia Post rethink its approach to retail as we have seen the ABC do in recent months. If they do, there will be more opportunities for newsagents.

Why are post offices selling so much crappy stuff these days? My answer is – because they have lost their way, they no longer know what they stand for. That is reflected in their broad an disconnected range of food.

Australia Post has a booth at the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney. While primarily pitching their Startrack delivery service, they are also pitching e-commerce solutions of relevance to retailers running businesses that are relevant to shoppers today. The presence of Australia Post ought to surprise others who should have been at this trade show and who are not.

This trade show is interesting because of some stands that expand the appeal of the trade show and because of some suppliers who ought to be there and are not – also because of the diversity of the retailers attending. The floor of the trade show speaks to changes in the retail channels to which this show appeals.

From where I stand, changes = opportunity = optimism.

Good on Australia Post for having a crack at this trade show.

Melbourne radio station 3AW today apparently covered the story of Westpac withdrawing from newsagencies to Australia Post. I did not hear it myself. Some colleagues called me about it. I can’t find any reference to it online.

While I understand the Westpac decision, how they are going about it disappointing and not in a manner I would expect from a bank that says it cares about small business.