Hellenic Post targets higher revenues with new services, including medicine delivery
Hellenic Post (ELTA) will be expanding the services it provides to include delivery of medicines to the disabled and elderly from late January, the state-run Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA) has said, quoting ELTA chief Costis Melachrinos.
Melachrinos told AMNA that ELTA will be launching a scheme later this month whereby people with mobility problems and the elderly will be able to have their medicines delivered to their doorstep by their postman. The fee for the new service will be set at 3 euros and a central exchange will organize the day and time that the postman will go to people’s homes to pick up their prescriptions and redeem them.
The service will only be available in Attica at first before being expanded to include other parts of the country, while ELTA is also setting up a system so that postmen can deliver dry cleaning and supermarket shopping at a later date, like similar programs in other European Union countries such as Belgium.
Another scheme aimed at boosting ELTA’s revenues that will go into effect next month is the issuing of prepaid debit cards that allow consumers to make safe online purchases without having to use their credit cards.
Consumers will be able to apply for and buy credit for the charge card at any ELTA post office.
There is already a service whereby ELTA purchases, packages and delivers goods to consumers from small and medium-sized businesses all over Greece at the client’s request with payment for the purchase made on delivery. This scheme costs customers who want their purchase delivered to their door 1 euro per transaction and has a track-and-trace service. The aim is to alleviate the burden of delivery from businesses while also generating revenues for ELTA.
The country’s main postal service, meanwhile, also recently signed a deal with train operator Trainose to reserve four shipping containers daily on the Athens-Thessaloniki route for the transport of parcels around the country. The transport of parcels by train rather than by ELTA vans is expected to save the company some 2,300 euros per container.
Melachrinos told AMNA that while ELTA saw a 5-6-million-euro shortfall in revenues in 2013, it is expected to improve its performance in 2014 with gains of 7 million euros thanks to the new schemes and by streamlining the post office network.
