Polish Post launches new ecommerce platform

Poczta Polska, called Polish Post in English, is launching a new solution for ecommerce shipping, combining shipping with banking, insurance and digital services. The state-owned firm handled about one in three ecommerce shipments in Poland last year. By launching a new shipping solution, Polish Post wants to take advantage of the predicted fast growth of the ecommerce sector.

Online shopping accounted for about a quarter of the entire Polish parcel market and Polish Post handled 31% of those ecommerce shipments. The national postal operator now wants to provide integrated services combining package shipment with financial and digital services. It will make use of the services from the postal bank Bank Pocztowy, its own postal insurance business Ubezpieczenia Pocztowe and digital platform Envelo. The latter, also owned by Polish Post, will take care of the payment and invoicing on this new platform.

“In one place, online customers can choose the package according to their needs, outsource the handling of returns, use financial and insurance products and the ‘neofaktura’ service (electronic invoice)”, the company says on its website. “This combination is part of a trend that can already be seen in Europe: the full integration of services for the e-commerce sector, instead of postal operators focusing on shipping and delivering packages, as was the case in the early stages of online trade development”, says Jerzy Jóźkowiak, president of the Polish Post on PostandParcel.info.

The Polish ecommerce industry will probably be worth more than 7 billion euros this year. The local ecommerce market is growing rapidly (30% y-o-y in 2012) and it’s unlikely to slow down this year.