Published on the 19/06/2014 | Written by Newsdesk
From today Digital Post Australia will stop delivering online mail, and users of the service have until the end of July to retrieve any stored documents as the service shuts its doors…
Digital Post Australia is shutting shop after failing to win the level of corporate support that it needed to survive. Although in a newsletter released earlier this year the firm said that it had signed 1000 organisations to send mail through the service (which saw mail delivered electronically on a consumer opt-in basis) it was not enough to sustain the business.
From today (19 June) no further mail will be distributed to consumers who have also been warned to download or print any stored documents by 31 July.
The news comes just a week after Australia Post announced a substantial reorganisation of its business and a decision to cut 900 jobs as it reforms itself to survive the digital disruption affecting the postal sector.
Australia Post and Digital Post Australia had been arch rivals, including fighting a legal a case which went all the way to the Federal Court. Last December the Court finally confirmed Digital Post Australia’s right to use that name.
Australia Post’s own digital mailbox service, MyPost, has had a similarly slow start although Telstra, AMP, Sydney Water, Westpac, Virgin Australia and Brisbane City Council are among the early adopters of the system.
Digital Post Australia was originally established in March 2012 as a joint venture between Computershare, Salmat and Zumbox, which developed the underpinning software. Salmat however swiftly offloaded its stake in the business which it sold to FujiFilm.
Fuji then sold its stake to Computershare which currently owns 80 percent of Digital Post Australia.
From day one the company had ambitious targets, hoping to snare 25-30 percent of the Australian population as users in the first 18 months of operation. It was also prepared to go toe-to-toe with Australia Post in a lengthy and expensive legal battle to use the Digital Post Australia name.
Sending organisations, which were lured by potentially cheaper distribution costs of around 15 cents per item sent, however failed to adopt the service in the numbers needed to sustain Digital Post’s business model.
According to a statement posted on the company’s website; “All of us at Digital Post Australia think that digital postboxes are a great idea, but without enough senders supporting this channel our service is just not sustainable at this point in time.”
