Among the various Chinese New Year mailings looking for a piece of the consumer's buck, I found a nice five-fold mini-catalog printed on good quality stock. Entitled shop@post, "where great shopping begins," it claims to be "Ushering in the Lunar New Year with Great Buys!" The familiar Singapore Post logo is in the corner.
What are some of these great buys? There's two different models of electric steamboat pot, a Black & Decker cordless drill, a range of abalone gift sets, a variety of phones and walkie talkies, and a mini car fridge. There's even a 26" LCD/DVD combo, which I think is also a TV although it doesn't say. I can also go online for more selections.
I can place my order at any of 62 post offices island-wide, drop it in any post box, order online, or visit any SAM or SAMplus. SAM stands for self-service automated machine. I used to be able to buy stamps from them, but they no longer take small change and there is always a super long queue of people waiting to do all kinds of non-mail related things. I don't know what SAMplus does, though presumably it offers more than the regular SAM. Maybe it also sells stamps or shines shoes.
So my prediction that SingPost would shut down its mail service altogether is probably wrong. It needs the mail to deliver its catalog! So here's my revised prediction: SingPost will expand its retail offerings and soon I will be getting a shop@post catalog the size of the Yellow Pages.
The Straits Times reports today that SingPost's third-quarter profits jumped 20.6 per cent. Of that, mail revenue declined 1.2% while retail revenue increased by 4.1%. Only 4.1%? They need to be more aggressive in their marketing! I'm sure they will be.
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