From Christopher Bee, director.
I WRITE in response to the article in the business section (JEP 17 Jun) entitled ‘Swiss post link boost for fulfilment firms’.

Many will be aware of HubEurope’s application to the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority to offer competitive postal services in Jersey.

As stated previously, we are a local company with local offices and employees. We have, for sometime, maintained that Jersey Post is chronically unfit for purpose and that the quality of services being offered by them, especially into Europe, if allowed to continue without competition would result in the exodus of local fulfilment companies to jurisdictions with more advantageous postal services.

Clearly with or without competition, the worst case scenario for Jersey, as an economy, is the complete loss of e-commerce business to another jurisdiction. Should this be the case, neither Jersey Post, its prospective competitors, nor the Islands economy will ever get to benefit from this business again.

The continuing delay in a decision on the award of new local postal licenses is a further frustration for e-commerce companies, who are already dissatisfied with the current postal offering from Jersey Post.

Their views were made overwhelmingly clear during the public consultation, as mentioned by the Director of the JCRA in his letter (JEP, 1 Jun). I again quote: ‘Without the introduction of competition and with the continual and unnecessary price increases by Jersey Post, it is only a matter of time until fulfilment businesses will relocate outside of Jersey’.

It seems to me that the significance of two local companies forming an alliance with Swiss Post and then holding a seminar in Jersey are being completely misunderstood. While it may offer a ‘boost for fulfilment firms’, as your headline describes this development, it does at the same time ring a death knell for the e-commerce sector in Jersey, which employs some 1,200 to 1,500 people.

Your article fails to understand that these companies are currently based in the Channel Islands and that the purpose of this seminar was to attract them away from Jersey to relocate in Switzerland, a jurisdiction that offers better postal solutions.
The reason HubEurope applied to the JCRA for a postal license was to satisfy the needs of the local e-commerce sector. If they had not been deeply dissatisfied, there would have been no room in the market for competition. Our goal is to keep e-commerce in Jersey and encourage it to grow.

The continued misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the facts in this matter now threaten to start eating away not only at Jersey Post, but at Jersey’s fragile economy. Jersey needs competition and it needs it now, not in October or November. The States of Jersey must realise the value of e-commerce to the Island and support the 1,200 to 1,500 people employed in the sector.

Those working in the fulfilment industry have unanimously voiced their dissatisfaction and concern, only to be drowned out by the misguided few who would rather protect the inefficient Jersey Post monopoly.

What States Members should listen to with the utmost concern is the sound of business relocating away from Jersey.