a long, long, time ago
. . .on the kitchen table of an unremarkable terraced house in Doncaster, a remarkable mail forwarding business was born.
Christened 'The Post House' by its proud expatriate parents, this new little venture worked and worked, under the watchful eye of a family friend, for the next ten quiet and largely uneventful years.
Then, one day in 2010, a spanking new website and sprinkle of magic Google dust triggered a major growth spurt, seeing the infant Post House treble in size within months! Before very long, those occasional trips to the local Post Office became a daily chore. There were just too many shoe boxes to juggle, too many addresses to jot down and oh too many stamps to lick.
The hero of our story needed new, professional, management, and so was packed off to start a new life in West Wales. . .
. . .the great adventure had begun!
the-post-house.com
On arriving in distant Pembrokeshire, its tired business model was restructured and The Post House was dressed in grown-up clothes.
Postie settled quickly into its new home by the sea and flourished! By mid 2014 new mailbox accounts were being added daily, all arising from Google searches and word-of-mouth referrals. Something, however, began to arrest its development. We looked closely at Google and discovered that most of the 1,300 potential customers that visited Postie's website each month had added geographical filters to their searches. People were looking for virtual addresses in specific areas of the country!
It was also becoming clear that tending more than 200 accounts was impractical for our overworked elves, and that some form of automation would be necessary if the adolescent business was to truly blossom and achieve its full potential.
expost logistics limited...
In the absence of a crystal ball, a business development plan confirmed the critical need for a software management system and clearly identified business format franchising as the only realistic means of meeting the untapped market demand for postal addresses in multiple town and city locations. Magic beans from a Private equity investor were sown in March 2015 and the newly structured business incorporated as Expost Logistics Limited.
chapter two
and a new coming of age
expost.uk
Anticipating our planned licence roll-out, we launched the newly branded expost offering in March of 2015 as a direct analogue for all future Mail Centres.
To make the proof of concept as realistic as possible, the Head Office Mail Centre in Pembrokeshire has been operated completely independently from day one ( as Expost Logistics Limited ), with all revenue and costs accounted for separately, producing actual figures upon which our initial licence performance projections were based.
building propost™
Development of the new management system began in April of 2015 and, by August, we had incorporated its primary functions into the national expost.uk website. The benefits were immediate and dramatic. Now in its third iteration, with a mobile App on the way, ProPost™ streamlines all mail management and accounting functions, drastically reducing handling time and Elf labour costs!
Aside from simplifying mail log-in and despatch, it is ProPost™ that allows customers to access and control their own accounts, administers all sales and financial transactions, issues automatic email or SMS notifications, and flags unusual or suspicious account activity. By fulfilling these otherwise manual functions, it has also eliminated any limit to the number of accounts that can be managed by a single Mail Centre.
chapter three
our uk mail centre locations
Already established and trading are the regional Centres for South Wales, Scotland, the South East, the Midlands and South West. This first phase of licence roll out was completed in October 2018 when we establish a presence in Northern Ireland ( specifically to serve the projected post-Brexit demand ). Only four other locations are planned ( Central London, Manchester, Newcastle, and the South Coast ), these ten Regional Centres will then complete our mainland UK network, each with their geographical exclusivity protected by contract.
We have always been aware, however, that great demand exists for an expost Mail Centre serving Yorkshire, ideally located in Sheffield, Leeds or Bradford.
and tomorrow?
a brief glimpse into our future
the expost app
This free-to-download mobile App is already in development and will allow customers to control their accounts at the touch of a screen. It will also incorporate at least one mobile payment system, and be fully cross-platform compatible with Android, Windows and iPhone operating systems.