Australia Post’s Hoppers Crossing Delivery Centre is in the middle of its busiest time of year. Jaidyn Kennedy visited the team to get a peek at how they keep up with peak.
While the concept of mail itself is timeless, the way it is delivered is anything but.
After more than three decades at Australia Post, Raymond Brown has seen first-hand how the delivery of mail has transformed.
“I have been in the job for 37 years, and 20 years ago, when I was a postie, your postie would deliver your mail, the odd parcel, and your passport,” Mr Brown said.
“Then a guy in a van would pull up next and would deliver your parcel, another guy would deliver something else.
“Now, the postie can deliver it all. They have condensed their work area, but given them more to do in the area.”
Now the operations manager at the Hoppers Crossing delivery centre, one of the busiest in that state with 141,000 addresses on its routes, devising ways to keep up with change is part and parcel of the job.
The busy season – or peak– is one of those things that keeps on changing,” Mr Brown said.
“Peak used to be December. Now, some years it will start in mid-November and then the next year it is the first week of November– so anytime October starts to come around, get ready for peak.”
Mr Brown said the global pandemic fundamentally changed consumer habits, and Australian retailers adopting the North American Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales that fall in late November super-charged online shopping.
“People stopped going to the shops – a lot of the older people still like going to the shops, but a lot of the younger ones just say I’ll shop online,” he said.
“Like anywhere in the world, someone says go a week earlier– we’ll get to the market.”
And if Australia Post’s latest quarterly eCommerce report is anything to go, the market is certainly in their catchment area.
The 3029 postcode, which includes Hoppers Crossing, Tarneit and Truganina, topped the list for online shopping nationwide.
Postcode 3030, home to Point Cook, Werribee and Werribee South, wasn’t far behind in fourth position.
Postcodes 3024, 3027 and 3028 in Wyndham and a small part of Hobsons Bay also fall under its catchment.
The centre delivered more than 2.8 million articles last peak, and is expecting a 20 per cent increase this season.
Delivery manager Alex Luca, who has been with the company for more than 40 years, said rapid population growth and shopping trends equate to having to hire three new people each year.
“Last year we delivered 501,000 small parcels and 635,000 large parcels and that was just in peak–like six weeks,” Mr Luca said.
“This year the expectation is for posties with the small parcels to go up to 572,000 and for the large parcels to be 660,000 – so there’s significant growth.”
Mr Brown said growing suburbs are not easy to keep up with.
“In the growth areas it’s still difficult because there might be a house at number one and then vacant land until number 17,” he said.
“You go down one street one day and you go down it a month later and you are like there are six new houses here.”
The map he put up in his office a year ago is living proof of that.
“I made that for me because we are in the process of change and I’m trying to capture the growth as it’s growing,” he said.
“It was great when I put it up 12 months ago, but I think I might have to go back to Melways and get another one.”
And while its been a while since Mr Brown and Mr Luca were posties, but they still haven’t lost the sense of what it takes to get the job done.
Naturally, that starts with the mode of transport.
Australia Post has been rolling out new electric three-wheel bikes with built-in canopies, aptly named Rapide 3.
The vehicle can reach 80km/h, allowing posties to alternate between main roads and pedestrian paths.
It can carry up to 150 parcels at a once, but there’s no avoiding having to cut inventory at times.
“They can only carry so much on the vehicle, so we send it out in bags and they get to that point with the green bin, get what is left and keep going,” Mr Brown said.
The expansion of 24-hour parcel lockers have been one of the ways to meet the consumer half way – especially as their habits have changed.
“You get home at 7pm – post office is shut– ah great, I can go to the parcel locker and scan, Mr Brown said.
And as parcel numbers continue to surge, Mr Brown said Australian Post still takes its obligations to letters seriously.
“We don’t forget this [letters], but we work really hard to sustain the parcel volume,” he said.
“We still have an obligation to the community because our grandma still posts a letter.
“We’ll get that letter to you for sure, but the rest of the community want their parcels.”
