A Fun and Interesting Visit to SingPost

I will always remember the Postman delivering mail to my maternal grandparents mailbox when I was a young boy staying over at their terrace house. The familiar sound of the scooter and horn always get us young kids excited to rush out and collect the mails from the mailman or from the mailbox. There were also times when the postman delivered mail to my mailbox below my block after parking his scooter. While my block has changed to pushing a trolley instead of riding over on a motorcycle, it’s always nice to see the friendly mail delivery person delivering our mail into our mailbox.

How far can you remember our Singapore Post (SingPost) and what they had done ? I remembered my postal code was 4 digits and I can remember my 4 digits postal code by heart! As times changed and advance in technology, it is now using 6 digits! Do you know that Singapore Post has served Singapore for more than 150 years? Singapore Post had been in such a long service and today, they have delivered to more than 1.6million households and businesses in Singapore everyday. There is a Singapore Post (Post Offices, SAM and POPStation) presence spread across the whole of Singapore with more than 1400 touch points for Singaporeans.

During a recent visit to SingPost, I had a better understanding of the traditional mail services provided by SingPost. Besides that, I was introduced to the various services that SingPost provide, transforming to more than just a post office. The society and economy has transformed so much over the centuries and every business has to evolve and change to meet the modern needs and changes. Here are the 4 main range of services provided by SingPost

1) Mail and Digital Services

2) Logistics

3) e-Commerce

4) Retail and Financial Services

Our kind and hospitable hosts SingPost organised some interesting games and visit to let us have a more in-depth understanding of postal services and how it works inside the Post Office! Before the era of internet and emails, do you remember writing your mails, putting inside envelopes, buying stamps and posting it? Do you know your envelope size, is it Standard Mail or Non-Standard Mail, how much does it cost for the postage for Local Mail? Even though I had experiences in sorting out mail and getting stamps for my part time job many years ago, I still couldn’t get it everything correct during our postal game!

Photograph Courtesy of Joe Teh

Photograph Courtesy of Joe Teh

Photograph Courtesy of Joe Teh

The era of e-Commerce is upon us and this is something definitely that attracts everybody (from the young to the adults). SingPost has hassle-free shopping experiences online and let me introduce to you vPost, Omigo and Sample Store!

vPost

If you love buying stuff from overseas and shipping it over to Singapore, check out vPost! To all my readers, there is something special for you!

Voucher code: BLOG30 (Expires 15 Jan 2014) – $30 off and minimum spending of $50 is required.

**Kindly note that for discounts for vPOST are only applicable for  vPostUSA, vPostEUROPE, vPostJAPAN and vPostCHINA shipping services, excluding fuel surcharges.**

Omigo

Omigo is Singapore’s one-stop online solution widest range of products and top brands from all around the world, and deliver your desired items right to your doorstep. Check out their website for the various kinds of products that Omigo brings to you! To my readers, there is something special for you!

Voucher code: BLOG7 (Expires 31 Dec 2013) – 7% off and no minimum spending is required

** Kindly note that for discounts for Omigo are not applicable for Apple and Philatelic products, and is only valid for items less than $2500. ** 

Sample Store

Sample Store is the leading online try-vertising platform in Singapore and it has more than 100 different brands and up to 80,000 members! Check out Samplestore.com and check out how it works!

Our next adventure was a visit to the Video Coding Room. With the postal machines inside SingPost reading the 6 digits postal code on our envelopes, sometimes the machines were not able to read the 6 digits postal code and manual human intervention will be required to read and key in the 6 digit codes. Visiting the Video Coding Room was very interesting, we had a hands on experience on what it’s like to read and key in the 6 digits postal code! We took a test after some practices and this is something unique and interesting that happens behind the scenes of our SingPost operations! We had a better understanding of the people that worked behind the scenes inside the Video Coding Room!

Next up that interests me is the POPStation, this is going to revolutionise parcel delivery in Singapore! 24/7 and 365 Access, currently 15 POPStations across Singapore, it’s FREE and No Fee! It is extremely easy to use and we had a parcel collection experience from the POPStation.

Photograph Courtesy of Joe Teh

Here are the Steps to have a great experience collection from the POPStation!

Step 1: Receive an SMS or email notifying you to collect their parcel at a POPStation.

Step 2: “Pop” over to the POPStation location.

Step 3: Scan a QR Code or key in a pin number to open the locker at the POPStation.

Step 4: Collect the parcel from the locker.

Step 5: Close the locker door.

Photograph Courtesy of Joe Teh

It’s really useful and easy to use! I like this a lot and hope that my future parcel purchases can be delivered to the POPStation and I can just pop over to pick it up personally!

As our adventure visiting SingPost comes to an end on that evening, we left for home with a better understanding of SingPost and what they do, from the front and back scenes. I would like to thank SingPost and Ogilvy Public Relations for the invitation, their warm hospitality and SingPost for showing us around! I would also like to thank fellow photographer/techie Joe Teh for permission to use his photographs, check out his post on the visit to SingPost too!