14-12-2017
Dear readers,
As the year comes to a close, I am pleased to present you the last edition of YourIPC for 2017. On this occasion, I would like to look at the main highlights of the year.
Path for growth
Preliminary data on the global postal industry’s performance for 2017 –from the IPC Global Postal Industry Report published a few weeks ago - show that posts remain on the path for growth. Parcels continue to fuel growth for the postal sector. These results show that efforts by posts worldwide to harness e-commerce growth are bearing their fruits. However, posts still have plenty of opportunities to grow their e-commerce delivery share, outperforming the letter decline.
IPC 2025 strategy adopted
Enabling posts to take the lead in the e-commerce markets is the key objective of the new IPC 2025 Strategy adopted earlier this year. The first phase of this strategy implies that we ensure that our current solutions and services are better used among members.
INTERCONNECT is taking off
I am glad to see that our efforts are already paying off as for the previous months, volumes of items going through INTERCONNECT are significantly increasing. We expect more volume to be transitioned. To further speed up the take-up process and build on this success, we will explore further growth opportunities through the development of a platform that will allow e-retailers to easily provide the network’s features to their online shoppers through the member posts.
Major developments in 2017
Highlights of the year include a new cooperation agreement between UPU and IPC. It sets out to reinforce joint activities of both organisations in fields such as innovation, quality, efficiency, sustainable development, electronic data interchange activities. This year was also marked by the launch of the new edition of the IPC cross-border e-commerce shopper survey, the only survey to focus exclusively on the cross-border e-commerce shopping experiences. This year, the scope was considerably extended, with the inclusion of seven new markets and a significant increase in the sample. Following consistent annual improvements by the posts participating in the IPC Environmental Measurement and Monitoring System (EMMS), the group is on track to achieve the 90% Carbon Management Proficiency target before 2020.
As part of our efforts to increase the usage of the current IPC services, some IPC solutions have registered new records. For instance, the IPC Common Returns Platform hit seven million items.
The IPC Pallet Box is now used on 16 flows between France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK, with Luxembourg coming on-line in January 2018. New services were launched, such as the Notification Service, allowing posts to offer their customers an easy to implement notification service for cross-border purchases, relying on the IPC Data Hub.
International cooperation is key
As cross-border e-commerce is now increasing at a more rapid pace than at domestic level, international cooperation is more than important than ever for posts to play a bigger role in the e-commerce market. Cooperation with members and stakeholders will continue to drive IPC throughout the coming year.
I wish you all a happy New Year and a successful 2018.
Holger Winklbauer
CEO IPC