15.07.2022
(uniquement en anglais)
This call for tenders concerns the provision of specialized services with a view to assisting the UPU in developing physical postal services to better reflect e-commerce customer needs, as well as the provision of recommendations on the service portfolio and on strategies to increase the share of postal operators in the “over 2 kg” market. The scope of the study is global, broken down into the following regional (geographic) markets:
- Africa
- Arab countries
- Asia-Pacific
- Caribbean
- Europe
- North America
- Latin America
The deadline for the submission of tenders is 15 August 2022 at 16.00 CEST.
(Uniquement en anglais)
Q 1: What is the expected level of details/granularity in geographical analysis?
A1: We expect a coarse-grained rather than a fine-grained analysis of the geographic markets, where some of the fine details have been averaged out or smoothed over to represent the regional aggregate instead of individual country peculiarities.
Q 2: Do you want us to realize specific analysis country by country, or to set an overview of a common market (APAC, Middle East, Europe, South América, ...)?
A 2: Provide an overview of a common market or region, while also mentioning any significant outliers within the region.
Q 3: Do you expect insight from postal operators only or also from other carriers that are not postal operators?
A 3: Provide insights from both designated (postal) and non-designated operators.
Q 4: Could you provide the list of countries and ideally of carriers that you would like to have in the scope of the study?
A 4: The Vendor is expected to establish a sampling criterion, with the support of the UPU, which will then be used to determine the countries in each region to be included in the study.
Q 5: Could you confirm the scope is only for documents?
A 5: The scope of the RFP-2022-009-DOP does not concern documents at all. The scope is only for the “under 2 kg” and “over 2 kg” postal services for items containing goods, used also for ecommerce transactions. The RFP-2022-009-DOP excludes all postal services for items containing documents, which instead are addressed in RFP-2022-010-DOP.
Q 6: Can you confirm that the scope is excluding all parcels and goods? Note that e-Commerce parcels and goods are addressed the other RFP.
A 6: The RFP-2022-009-DOP includes all the “under 2 kg” and “over 2 kg” postal services for items containing goods, that is, lightweight under 2 kg letter-post items Format E (small packets) and “over 2 kg” parcels (ordinary surface parcels, air parcels, surface airlifted (SAL) parcels and ECOMPRO parcels) – see section 2.4 of the CFT.
Q 7: Can you confirm that the scope is including Small Packets products under 2kg? Do we need to include the ones being greater than 2kg (if any?)
A 7: Yes, the scope of the RFP-2022-009-DOP includes all the “under 2 kg” and “over 2 kg” postal services for items containing goods, as explained in the answer to question 2(i) above.
Q 8: Can you confirm that the scope is including marketing mail?
A 8: No, the scope of the RFP-2022-009-DOP does not include marketing mail. In any case, the RFP-2022-009-DOP concerns only postal services for items containing goods.
Q 9: Can you confirm that the scope is including global mail?
A 9: The UPU does not have a definition of ‘global mail’ in its Acts. In any case, the RFP-2022-009-DOP concerns only postal services for items containing goods.
Q 10: Do we need to focus a specific recipients B2B / B2C / C2C / C2B or all?
A 10: The core international or cross-border e-commerce model used by designated operators is the B2C model. The sender is a business entity in the origin country, and the recipient is a consumer in the destination country. Based on recent global events shaping current ecommerce trends, it is assumed that the core postal cross-border B2C model will shift to a combined cross-border B2B and domestic B2C model. Focus should therefore be on cross-border B2C and cross-border B2B.
Q 11: Can you confirm that the focus is on International only and that Domestic documents should be excluded?
A 11: The focus of the RFP-2022-009-DOP is only on the international or cross-border postal services for items containing goods. It is not on domestic items or documents.
Q 12: Do you need details by destinations? If yes, what kind of details is expected?
A 12: No details by destination, or origin for that matter, is expected, except where the information compliments or supplements the facts provided in the report.
Q 13: Should the ‘Sameday’ and the Food delivery products be included/excluded?
A 13: The focus of the study is on e-commerce customer needs, and how best physical postal services should be developed to better reflect those needs. The study should also provide recommendations on how the international physical postal services portfolio could be further enhanced to better reflect e-commerce customer needs. Lastly, the study should provide recommendations on the strategies to increase the share of designated operators in the “over 2 kg” market. Note that the commercial offering of the international postal services is different from country to country. The study should stick to a common definition of the postal services as defined in the Acts of the UPU.
Q 14: Do you need other segments, i.e. Express/Deferred, Intra Continent/Extra Continent, etc?
A 14: Refer to the answer to question 2(viii).
Q 15: Could you confirm that the output must include the content of the various interviews (including sender and postal operators) or just a summary?
A 16: The final report should not include the detailed answers of each respondent involved in the study. It is expected that the responses will be integrated in the various chapters of the study, to answer the research questions and meet the study objectives in a logical flow. A stand-alone section of the responses, whether in detail or summary, is not expected in the report. The detailed and/or summarized responses should be given to the UPU separately as part of the primary source materials.
Q 17: Do you expect insight on each postal operator in each country? Thank you for clarifying your expectations?
A 17: No, the UPU does not expect insight on each designated operator in each country. See response to question 1.
Q 18: In the competitive landscape, do you expect key players from postal operators only? Or other players in the document shipment?
A 18: As mentioned in section 2.5 of the call for tenders document, the competitive landscape will include key players (designated and non-designated operators) offering international physical postal services for items containing goods, including those in the cargo sector offering postal-related services.