AusPost smacks print with two week mail ban

Australia Post is suspending Unaddressed Mail bookings in NSW and Victoria for two weeks next month, leaving the print and mail industry angry, frustrated, and looking at financial losses.

The mail monopoly is suspending Standard Unaddressed Mail in the weeks beginning 13 September and 20 September. It is the first time in the history of Australia Post that it has suspended UM.

It says it will honour existing bookings made for that period, but even for those it says it cannot guarantee they will be delivered in that period. The move has left planned campaigns in tatters.

One local printer told Print21, “This is big. They have never done this before – this is going cost us a lot of work, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.

“We had a customer who had a local campaign planned for them, now they are moving it to Facebook, the job has gone.”

The print and mail industry has already been dealing with the suspension of Premium Unaddressed Mail, which has been unavailable since 26 July. It was due to come back on 10 September, but it has now been suspended indefinitely.

Printers are also frustrated with communication, or lack of it from AusPost; no notice of the two week mail suspension has been given to the industry, it is just a note on the booking website.

Adding salt to the wound AusPost is also raising prices from 1 September.

Australia Post’s actions in regard to mail is now leading to the emergence of a new breed of private letterbox walkers, who are able to charge more than AusPost, because they can guarantee delivery in the agreed time frame. Mail is a legal requirement for many industries, major infrastructure operations for instance are often only allowed to commence once they have notified local residents, by post, that works are due. With increased uncertainty created by AusPost those new mail opportunities are emerging.

AusPost hasn’t said why it is suspending UM, although Print21 understands Covid is causing dramas in several distribution centres, both mail and parcels, with parcels the key focus of AusPost.

It is already pumping resources into its booming parcels business. With extended lockdowns and parcel volumes hitting heights not seen since Christmas last year, Australia Post is introducing new measures to keep deliveries moving, including a hiring blitz to boost staff numbers and ramp up weekend deliveries.

Having already opened pop-up sites to help with processing, Australia Post is set to recruit more than 4000 new team members nationally, with 3500 additional delivery roles (including 350 in regional areas), which includes more than 1000 drivers and 2100 staff, to help sort parcels, as well as many new customer support roles based in Victoria and Queensland.

With the most recent lockdowns across NSW and Victoria driving Australians to shop online in record numbers, Australia Post has confirmed that weekend deliveries will remain in place from now until the end of the year, with up to half a million parcels delivered each and every weekend from now until Christmas.