Postal Hub podcast

David Spottiswood, co-founder of Hurricane Modular Commerce, and David Nelson, Vice President Sales (Americas) at Escher, join me to talk about improving the efficiency and customer experience of cross-border e-commerce:

• Estimating taxes and duties on goods moved via the post office
• Data collection for cross-border e-commerce
• Data leakage for parcels lodged over the counter
• Delays due to customs inspections
• The customer experience for cross-border e-commerce
• Prohibited and restricted items
• Screening denied and restricted parties
• Creating a central global database of denied and restricted parties
• Gathering sender and addressee data at the time of lodgement (in the post office)
• How changes in legislation have affected cross-border parcels
• Reducing the cost of returns
• What growth in cross-border e-commerce means for postal operators
• Risks in not paying duties and taxes

Catalin Maftei, founder and CEO of C-Solution, joins me to discuss an innovative approach to parcel lockers:

• How a payment solutions provider became a parcel delivery company
• The link between delivery failure and refunds
• How niche online businesses grow from marketplaces to becoming standalone e-commerce merchants
• How small business growth is powering Romanian e-commerce
• Cross-border e-commerce in the region
• How C-Solution set up a parcel locker network, including:
  • Site selection
  • Proximity
  • Commercial vs residential lockers
  • Temperature control considerations
  • Indoors vs outdoors
• A unique parcel locker offering: lockers in a container!
• Usage rates for the new parcel lockers
• A carrier neutral (open) parcel locker network - even allowing merchants to directly deliver to the lockers
• Some innovations in click-and-collect
• Savings made by Decathlon by implementing in-store click-and-collect lockers
• Teleportation! How parcel lockers are used for instant fulfilment
• Selecting the right products for teleportation
• Parcel lockers in residential buildings

Cathy Morrow Roberson, Founder and Lead Analyst at Logistics Trends and Insights on 3D printing and the delivery sector:

• 3D printing finding its purpose in life
• Bringing the point of manufacture closer to the customer
• Manufacturing and distributing spare parts
• Delivery companies getting involved in 3D printing
• Impact on warehousing and delivery
• Reducing logistics costs
• Shrinking manufacturing lead times
• Cross-border distribution
• Same-day delivery
• Implications for the just-in-time supply chain
• Reducing inventory requirements
• Which sector will next be disrupted by 3D printing?

Alan Barrie, senior advisor for e-commerce and urban logistics at Transport for London, talks about how changes to delivery can improve air quality:

• Overview of the types of vehicles on London's streets
• TfL's responsibilities
• The effect of London's congestion charge
• What the ULEZ (ultra low emission zone) means for the delivery sector
• Reducing emissions and improving efficiencies in the last mile
• Consumer-centric delivery solutions
• The UK's fractured PUDO networks
• Parcel locker networks - open vs closed
• Merchants' role in striving for the most sustainable delivery options
• Failed first-time residential deliveries - and the alternatives to home delivery
• Alternatively powered vehicles (including electric vehicles, bikes, cargo bikes)
• Micro delivery depots
• Courier safety in the last mile
• City logistics
• B2B deliveries
• Same-day delivery and its environmental impact
• Road safety

Lindiwe Kewele, Acting Group CEO at South African Post Office, discusses:

• Post office access in rural areas
• Social grant payment - and how SAPO delivers it
• Providing access to financial services
• Funding the USO and being self-sustainable
• Mobile postal services
• Migrating to non-cash payment alternatives, including mobile money
• Financial services for the elderly - including using biometrics to identify customers
• Future postal services
• Making delivery services more efficient and customer-centric
• Competition in parcels
• Stimulating cross-border e-commerce within the region

Also in this episode, I cover some recent developments in parcel delivery:

• Australia Post's new partnership with Doddle (called Click & Return)
• How retail shops (PUDOs) will be added to the post office and parcel locker network
• How customers will interact with Click & Return at checkout
• Amazon's new parcel locker and PUDO network
• A surprising choice for parcel locker locations
• Retailers partnering with Amazon to be PUDO points
• PostNL's changes to procedures for failed first-time residential deliveries

Nick Manolis, CEO of Escher Group, is my guest. We discuss:

• The blurring line between delivery and the retail network
• Achieving better customer engagement in a postal context
• Helping posts win more parcel volumes through measuring customer satisfaction
• Taking real-time data collection and making it useful
• Replacing mystery shoppers and QR codes on receipts
• Cross-border duties and taxes
• Dealing with "denied parties" and restricted products
• Efficiency at the counter when processing international parcels

Also in this episode: how Canada Post is using pop-up PUDOs to add capacity during peak season.

Ben Nowlan, CEO of OmniCX and co-founder of delivery start-up Sherpa, joins me to talk about fast delivery:

• The background to setting up Sherpa's fast delivery service
• Interactive delivery management from a consumer perspective and from a merchant/delivery perspective
• Communications between the delivery driver and the recipient
• Are companies not trying to be customer-centric?
• What's the driver behind same-day delivery - customer demand or fear? Or is there a coherent strategy?
• How can same-day delivery be successful? Ben shares key strategic points for offering same-day delivery.
• Why carriers need to understand retailers
• Cart values and fast delivery
• Click and collect
• Do customers really want products within an hour?
• How product categories influence speed of delivery
• In-store fulfilment
• Data!

Escher CTO Wayne Haubner joins me to discuss applications for artificial intelligence in the postal and delivery sectors:

• The difference between AI and machine learning
• Where to source data (e.g. transaction data, tracking data, customer profiles)
• AI and loyalty programmes - and the impact on repeat sales
• Driving better customer engagement with AI
• Digital on-boarding - training for new staff
• How AI and big data can predict problems in the delivery network and post office network
• Making data available for analysis in real-time
• Predicting and recognising customer behaviour - even in-store!
• Using AI to support up-selling in parcel delivery
• Reducing fraud using AI

An Post CEO David McRedmond is my special guest this week, talking about the postal workforce:

• How sustainability relates to the concept of decent work
• What offering decent work means for the workforce and for customers
• The connection between the post and the community
• The flexibility of other work engagement models (such as the gig economy)
• The pressure and innovation springing from e-commerce
• The downsides of the gig economy on workers and society
• The value of postal employees

Then Dean Maciuba, Director Consulting Services at Logistics Trends & Insights joins me to discuss smaller warehouses located closer to population centres:

• Fulfilment centre location and speed of delivery
• If costs per square metre increase, will e-commerce delivery costs go up?
• Restocking fulfilment centres - the "middle mile"
• Will last mile costs be less if fulfilment centres are closer to the consumer?
• Size of the vehicle and implications for last mile costs
• Congestion, emissions, and noise
• Locations for urban fulfilment centres
• Growth in industrial rents - and the factors behind this growth

To kick off this episode, Marek Różycki (Last Mile Experts) and I discuss parcel hold times at parcel lockers. Then we get a bit carried away, covering:

• How long a parcel should be held at a parcel locker
• Refilling parcel lockers multiple times per day
• How to encourage customers to collect parcels faster
• Linking event management systems to customer rewards

I'm pleased to welcome back Ivan Čulo, CEO of Hrvatska pošta (Croatian Post) to talk about the new logistics centre and more:

• The scale of the new logistics centre
• Functions of the logistics centre - last mile and hub-and-spoke network
• Consolidating locations and freeing up cash for reinvestment
• The sale of Croatian Post's pay-tv channel
• Growth in e-commerce parcel volumes and the need for capacity
• Productivity and competition in parcel delivery
• Speed and quality of delivery
• More customer-focused delivery services
• Cross-border parcels - including issues with small inbound cross-border parcels and VAT thresholds