Australia Post

Sticking out of the window of the Australia Post shop on Park Street South Melbourne is an Australia Post branded ATM.  This ATM has appeared in an area well serviced with ATMs by banks and other commercial operators.

There was no need for Australia Post to enter a well serviced marketplace, no need for this government owned monopoly to leverage its protected name and status to take business from private enterprise.

This is what Australia Post has been doing for years – under successive Governments.  There appears to be no stopping of the extent to which this wholly Government owned and protected enterprise will go to take revenue from the private sector.

The only value associated with this ATM is the Australia Post brand.  The Australia Post brand only has value because of its government protected mail service.  The government backing and guaranteed foot traffic makes it easier for Australia Post to make this move.

There is no point in complaining about this to the regulators, they will look into it and say that Australia Post is acting within the Act.  I have been down that road before.  This is a political problem which requires a political solution.  What we need is politicians who care about business and, in paticular, small business.

Where will one of these Australia Post ATMs appear next?  I will be interested to see how far this network grows.

I am grateful to a reader of this blog for the tip and photo.

The bear and other items on display in the Government owned Australia Post shop say nothing about postage, the core product of this business. Not content to pursue independent newsagents through their stationery and greeting card offers, this Government owned business is also pursuing traditional seasons such as Mother’s day by offering items you would usually expect to find in a newsagency at this time.

One way the Prime Minister could help small business newsagents would be to turn Government owned Post Offices into, well, Post Offices.

The Act does, after all, say that postal services are the core and the rest are to be incidental. Visit a Government owned Post Office and see how they treat these incidental items compared to their core products.

The head of the U.S. Postal Service went before Congress late last week to deliver a submission seeking help in the wake of a considerable downturn in business.  While there are considerable differences between the US Postal Service and Australia Post, reading the report led me to wonder about the health of our mail delivery sevice and whether Australia Post will further increase focus on non mail delivery service revenue streams.

I noticed an Australia Post outlet promoting 50% off greeting cards on the weekend. I saw another with the same offer today. Then I saw the Government owned Australia Post outlet with all cards removed from their fixturing – as shown in the photo. I wonder if Australia Post is changing its greeting card strategy. I know that cards have been underperforming for years in the Government owned outlets, certainly not achieving the ROI or return on floor space desired by the managers of the 865 strong Government owned retail chain.

The 50% off promotion is odd. It is running for two weeks but it excludes key seasonal offers such as Easter cards. While I would expect their supplier to be funding the offer, it is unfortunate that this Government owned business is again chasing business from independent small retailers like newsagencies.

I was surprised to see this sign outside the Government owned Australia Post store at Forest Hill yesterday. Not only is Australia Post pushing deeper into traditional newsagency lines but they are discounting Christmas cards at a time when there should be no discount. I suspect that the supplier of greeting cards is funding this. Australia Post would have relied on their network size, established by virtue of their Government monopoly and protection, to negotiate the deal.

Card experts tell me that Australia Post does not do that well with greeting cards. Maybe so. however, the category is there in Post Shops, at the front and making their businesses look like newsagencies.

I wish that Post Offices were Post Offices as they are in many other countries and that the Government retail network of 860 or so stores stopped trying to take customers from newsagencies like mine. They abuse their government ownership to their competitive advantage. Rather than offering an incidental service as the Act under which they operate states, they aggressively pursue their small bus8iness competitors.

The Government owned Australia Post store was closed for the VIP shopping night at Forest Hill Chase.  That they can get away with this is further evidence of them abusing their Government ownership for special treatment.

The Government owned Australia Post shop opposite our newsagency had a big display window promoting Vodafone installed late last week.  It looks better in person than the photo shows.  We are jealous of the professional looking window and the deal they must on to justify the space and stock investment.

Mobile phone handsets are a challenge for newsagencies as our stores carry more stock per square metre than most other retailers, space is limited.  Newsagencies are visually noisy too – a corporate display like for Vodafone would get lost when competing with bold magazine displays and lottery jackpot displays.

We have some ideas on how handsets could be represented and this is something we hope to play with soon.

The Australia Post ad on the back page of the current issue of Woman’s Day is brilliant.

This is the kind of ad I want to see from my government owned national postal service. It’s promoting the mail service – not stationery or picnic sets or sports memorabilia or calendars or magazines.

This ad gets Australia Post back to its postal service roots. Well done whoever created this campaign!

The brochure on the left has been pushed out far and wide by Australia Post. It makes the Post Office look like a phone retailer which they are in some locations. What is it with this government enterprise? Are they not happy with their postal service monopoly to the extent that they have to continue to take on small business. There are franchisees and independent small retailers across the country offering phones and related product. If there was a hole in coverage I’d understand but there isn’t. Australia Post’s government owned stores ought to get back to their roots and stop using their protection to hurt small businesses.