Cleaning up the postal range
Swiss Post wants to remove all lottery tickets and scratch cards from sale by the end of November 2020 at the latest. Lottery tickets and ticket sales were actually intended to boost the post office's increasingly declining counter business, but now the company is planning to narrow down its product range again and the contracts with the lottery companies Loterie Romande and Swisslos are to be terminated, according to an internal letter. The wording in this regard is::
“We are currently cleaning up our range from a strategic and cost-effective perspective and are getting rid of offers such as lottery products if we cannot operate them to cover our costs.”
As the document shows, the Swiss Post lottery business simply no longer seems financially worthwhile. In addition, the sale of lottery tickets does not fit into the “basic tasks of a post office,” is the statement from company management.
Other third-party products affected
In this sense, the withdrawal from the lottery branch is also preceded by the suspension of the sale of snacks, sweets and telephone items. As part of a large-scale reform wave, other third-party products such as stationery and books will also be subjected to a new assessment within the next few months. Swiss Post also arranges consultations with the Concordia health insurance company at selected counters.
For your understanding: The sale of so-called third-party products was introduced by Swiss Post back in 2000. The cooperation with the named lottery companies has now existed for over 15 years. Customers can Lottery tickets or purchase scratch cards in over 1,200 post offices nationwide. The termination of the lottery contracts will initially only affect the branches in German-speaking Switzerland; the lottery products are to be removed from the range here by the end of the year.
Lottery managers criticize decision
At the request of the Berner Zeitung (BZ) The lottery company Swisslos has now confirmed the cancellation of the postal contractsigt and expressed its dismay at the decision: “This will lead to a decline in sales for us,” says Swisslos spokesman Willy Mesmer. However, the ultimate extent cannot yet be predicted. How the missing income can be compensated is currently being examined.
There has been no statement from Swiss Post at this point - but it is clear that Swisslos generated gross gaming revenue of the equivalent of around 555 million euros last year. The gross gaming revenue results from the difference between the gaming stakes and the winnings paid out.
At the French lottery company Loterie Romande, the “yellow giant’s” decision was not only met with dismay, but also criticism and incomprehension. General Director Jean-Luc Moner-Banet recently commented on the developments, pointing out that the lottery business accounts for an average of around four percent of the post office's income, which represents a not insignificant value of at least 14.2 million euros. Moner-Banet considers the justification that the termination of the contracts was due to falling sales to be unbelievable. The Director General's verbatim:
“On the one hand, the postal service justified its decisionigt by saying that they want to direct their business more towards their actual postal tasks, and on the other hand, by saying that the games would not be profitable enough, which we, however, question.”
As Moner-Banet continued, the collaboration between the lottery and the postal service was always completely satisfactory. He therefore regrets the collapse of the collaboration, and many charitable projects will also suffer from the separation in the future.
150 jobs at risk
As the BZ reports show, up to 150 jobs are at risk as a result of the drastic decision. For this reason, the Syndicom union also expressed concerns: The postal service's decision will "not increase the profitability of the post offices, but worsen it," said David Roth, Syndicom's central secretary for logistics. According to GBN0085__ch, a “creeping reduction of 150 jobs” is to be expected, the reason being a higher contribution margin to maintain the individual branches.
According to the BZ, Swiss Post has so far only responded “evasively” to the question of whether jobs are at risk. They want to check the staffing levels of the individual branches based on various factors and “adjust them if necessary”. The factors in question also include, among other things, an investigation into whether and to what extent a post office branch is affected by falling sales figures in the traditional mail business. Given the increasing digitalization, this is likely to prevail in all branches. Further developments remain to be seen for the time being.
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