subject: Quality Parcel Delivery Services Will Ride Out Storm Facing Mail Deliverers [print this page] Year-on-year declines in the amount of letter post being sent all around the world have left mail delivery companies struggling to come to terms with how to fill the holes this has created in their business.
Sending a letter has been one of the most widely-used ways of communication ever since the introduction of the uniform Penny Post in 1840. From then until the end of the First World War in 1918, British people could send a letter to anywhere throughout the then still extensive British Empire for just one penny (half a decimal penny - 0.005). So its no wonder that this became the most widely-used communication method of the day.
As we approach 100 years since the end of the Penny Post, the mail delivery service of today looks considerably different. Modern technology has been by far the biggest facilitator of change, as people have become used to the savings in time and cost afforded by electronic communication first the telephone, and now, the internet and email.
The onset of all these technological breakthroughs means more options for cost-effective communication, but there is still one area in which physical delivery services cannot be replaced parcel delivery. When our forebears realised that they could send far more than just letters using the postal service, it was the catalyst for change which would affect the lives of every individual, and the way in which every business operated.
Motor transport was the great facilitator of most of this change, and even today refinements of air, sea, road and rail networks are constantly opening up new opportunities for worldwide shipping and home delivery services in the most remote corners of the world.
Today it is no longer a question of what can I have delivered? - rather it is how soon can it be delivered? And that has opened up new horizons for delivery companies looking to give an ever-shorter answer that question. Modern worldwide shipping involves harnessing different geo-location, journey-planning and resource management technology, all of which really has made the world a smaller place.
As the internet has brought down international boundaries for virtual communication, so delivery companies are doing the same with real deliveries. The only difference between the webs effect on mail delivery and parcel delivery is, however, that it can enhance the latter, whereas in one wave, it seems that it is all but wiping out the former.
And thats why so many companies for whom mail delivery used to be their bread and butter now have little alternative but to move into parcel delivery, be it on a local, national or worldwide scale.
