NZ Post swaps fast service for slow at the same price

By CHRIS DANIELS

Customers of New Zealand Post's new parcel service are paying the Fastpost price for slower delivery.

The popular blue Fastpost bags have been abandoned in favour of making people choose between dearer CourierPost bags and slow-delivery Parcel Post bags.

Customers who previously used Fastpost bags now pay the same price for the purple Parcel Post bags, but these arrive later.

The news comes as NZ Post reported a loss of $3.8 million for the three months to the end of June.

It warned in June that lower letter volumes meant it was unlikely to match the $30.2 million profit it reported for the year to March, which was 31 per cent higher than the year before.

Spokesman Simon Taylor said the Fastpost bags were no longer available. Parcel Post bags were sent by truck and were delivered within two or three days by couriers.

Fastpost bags had been sent by plane and also delivered by couriers.

"It just wasn't economic for us to sustain that [Fastpost] service at the prices we offered," said Mr Taylor. Essentially there had been no difference between Fastpost and CourierPost, which also involved sending parcels by air for courier delivery but was more expensive.

An A4 standard parcel bag now costs $4.95 - the same as the old Fastpost option - but will not be delivered the next day. CourierPost bags of the same size cost $6.80.

"We have to adjust our prices to meet the cost for the delivery of those services and we just couldn't deliver with Fastpost," said Mr Taylor.

In May, the state-owned enterprise told staff to stop delivering letters as quickly as they had been managing. Overtime was cut and staff recruitment suspended.

Management said staff had "been overperforming" by often delivering standard post items the next day.

Staff were told in an internal memo: "Stop over-achieving our service standard - only deliver standard post in Day 2 or 3 nationwide."