Red letter day for Dubai post
Sunday 9 Jan, 2011
A new service by a local start-up is aiming to close the postal loop in Dubai and bring mail directly to your doorstep.
While many nations around the world have long had systems that allow for post to be delivered straight to a resident’s door, Dubai has missed out, due largely to the city’s constantly changing road system and infrastructure making formal addresses or zip codes hard to implement.
Starting with the Palm Jumeirah, Emir Mail, is planning to offer customers who register a PO Box number.
But, unlike traditional PO Boxes - where the subscriber has to collect their post - the firm will install a fixed, lockable post box outside or near homes. The firm then says it will deliver post three times a week to the individual locations.
“The gap in the market is the last mail delivery,” Babar Ishaq, the president and founder of Emir Mail, told 7DAYS, describing the problem the service will solve. He explained the firm will work in collaboration with Emirates Post to collect registered user’s post from its sorting office take it its own facility where it will be barcoded and sorted.
Following a Palm Jumeirah trial, which is expected to start next month, Emir Mail aims to expand its service to the rest of Dubai and is in discussions with the major developers to site home boxes.
“We would like to see how we do with Palm Jumeirah... But we have the infrastructure to provide between 15,000 to 20,000 clients within the first six months,” said Ishaq.
While Emirates Post released the price bands for its PO Box services on Friday, which, starting at an annual price of Dhs3,500, offers regular delivery, Ishaq was not willing to detail how much customers would pay for Emir Mail’s service.
He did say though that as the firm’s ultimate aim is for every Dubai resident to have one of its post boxes, the service will be “competitively” priced.
