The main reason for one delivery is the environment and the drastic decline in mail volumes.

Currently, there are two different weekday mail deliveries in cities and population centers: the early-morning newspaper delivery and Posti's daytime delivery, which includes magazines, letters and advertisements in addition to newspapers.

For a long time, the media sector has demanded that these two deliveries be combined to cut delivery costs. The Finnish Media Federation already proposed before the last parliamentary election that the current separate deliveries should be combined. IROResearch was given an assignment by Posti to conduct a survey in July to find out how Finns feel about combining the deliveries.

66% of the citizens feel positively and 13% negatively about the change

One thousand citizens were interviewed for the survey, asking the question: "How do you feel about the delivery of newspapers, magazines, letters and other mail in cities and population centers in one delivery early in the morning?"

The survey revealed that 66% of citizens thought of the delivery of daytime mail early in the morning positively or fairly positively. 13% of respondents viewed the proposal negatively. Roughly one fifth of respondents had no opinion on the matter. 65% of women and 68% of men are in favor of combining the deliveries. The percentage of proponents was highest (74%) in the households that subscribe to a newspaper.

Over 70% of respondents: combining the deliveries is an environmental act

The main reason for one delivery quoted by citizens is the environment. As many as 74% of respondents felt that combining deliveries would be an environmental act since it reduces driving distances, fuel consumption and emissions. 42% of respondents felt strongly about this. For 87% of women under the age of 35, the environmental aspect was fairly important or very important.

According to respondents, delivering daytime mail in the morning also makes sense because the volume of delivered printed mail has halved. 74% of respondents thought this. 70% of respondents argued that one delivery would streamline the operations and reduce the delivery costs of sending customers.

More than half of respondents (55%) thought it important or fairly important to deliver letters and magazines earlier.

The survey also asked how many households subscribe to printed newspapers. 48% of the interviewees stated that they have newspapers delivered home. More than half (52%) of households do not have newspapers delivered.

Other delivery companies have delivered letters in the morning delivery for years

According to the Head of Posti's Postal Services business group, Yrjö Eskola, the survey shows that mail recipients in cities and population centers are already used to receiving mail in the morning delivery. Other companies have delivered letters in the early morning in cities and population centers for four years. Posti has also delivered newspapers to apartment buildings for decades.

"The coronavirus pandemic combined with digitalization has markedly reduced the mail delivery volume. The number of letters fell by 24% from April to June. With this downward trend, there will simply not be enough mail for two separate delivery networks," says Eskola.

Data for the survey was collected online by IROResearch Oy's national consumer panel from June 29 to July 6, 2020. In total, one thousand people were interviewed for the survey. The survey sample is selected on the basis of age, gender, type of place of residence and province to be representative of the population of Finns at the national level. The survey's statistical margin of error is approximately +3.2 percentage points at most.

Posti is planning: Day mail to be delivered together with newspapers in four municipalities in Pirkanmaa and Satakunta

Source: Posti