Delivery-related problems are responsible for 68% of
the situations where e-shoppers abandon their ecommerce
purchases before finalising the order. These delivery
related problems include, amongst others, e-shoppers
discovering that they have to pay unexpectedly high
delivery costs after adding their items into the shopping
cart; items that cannot be delivered because of an
incomplete address, especially in rural areas or realising
that the expected delivery times are too long.
The delivery of products bought online is a rather
complex business arrangement with multiple layers
of contracts. The delivery value chain involves four
main stakeholder groups, with a variety of different
combinations and business models as follows:
a.
E-shoppers:
Buy products and delivery services from
e-retailers;
b.
E-retailers:
Buy delivery services from delivery
operators and logistics intermediaries;
c.
Delivery operators:
Deliver the products on behalf
of the e-retailers. Delivery operators may use other
delivery operators as subcontractors; and
d.
Logistics intermediaries:
Operate in the intersections
that exist between e-shoppers, e-retailers and
delivery operators.
Studies have found that most e-shoppers and
e-retailers are least satisfied with the following aspects
of the delivery of products as follows:
i. Low delivery prices;
ii. Delivery to the home address;
iii. Access to electronic delivery notifications and track
and trace; and
iv. Convenient return options.
While features, such as next-day delivery, Saturday or
evening delivery, and delivery to a post office or collection
point are considered less important. As noted above, the
home address is still the preferred delivery point and a
complete home address is an important factor that needs
to be fulfilled.
ADDRESS FOR ALL PROJECTS
MCMC and Pos Malaysia Berhad (PMB) are committed to
providing a world-class mail delivery service. However, in
order to provide those services PMB encounter several
key problems, especially in rural areas due to incomplete
addresses, unnumbered premises or disorganised and
inadequate mail delivery infrastructure. Various measures
have been taken and will be implemented to ensure that
all mail delivery problems encountered can be resolved.
There are approximately 12% or 1 million addresses
in Malaysia that are incomplete. Even in urban areas,
there are some locations that do not have premise
numbers. According to the Department of Statistics,
the average household size in Malaysia is 4 persons to
a household, which means there are 4 million people
without complete home addresses.
MCMC and PMB’s main intention is to ensure
that existing home and premise address system used
throughout the country, regardless whether they are
located in a city or outside of a city, meets international
standards as recognised by the Universal Postal Union
(UPU) and abides by the SIRIM Malaysia’s Standard S42.
PMB has already developed a database of addresses
known as ‘Address Information System’ to ensure
consistency of address system at the national and
international level.
In the AFA project implementation, PMB will carry
out a systematic method of preparation of a full address
that will contain the following information:
i. Number of premise’s structure;
ii. Street name or name of a specific village; and
iii. Postcode and city.
Incomplete address is defined as an address with
missing delivery information such as unavailable or
duplicate house numbers, no specific area or location
and so on. For example, it will be a challenge to make
deliveries to two different persons having the same name
and living in the same area if they do not have unique
home addresses. Without an address, communications
with the outside world will break down.
For effective implementation, AFA has come up with
the following 6 steps to improve the current delivery
system:
1.
Delivery Postmen provide the necessary
information:
Delivery Postmen who are experts
in their delivery area will provide information
such as location, geographical and other necessary
information. It will help to define a more accurate
location and information of the house or premise.
2.
AFA Task Force goes down to the ground to
collect information using GPS Tool
: The AFA
Task Force team will collect information, such as
the longitude and latitude information, original
house number (if any), type of house and so on.
3.
The information is plotted into a digital map
:
The data collected will be compiled and formatted
into a virtual image. The primary function of
this technology is to produce maps that will give
accurate representations of a particular area. Once
the data is plotted, the address numbering process
will then commence.
4.
The villagers are engaged for the assignment
of house numbers:
After the numbering process,
the map will be handed over to the villagers for
approval.
5.
House number plaque is installed at the premise:
A plaque will be installed at the house or premise
only after the approval of the villagers. Each plaque
will have a QR Code, which can be quickly read by
the postman using a smartphone application. These
QR Codes are used to store the household code, the
complete address and a PMB address finder webpage
link.
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