In 2023, La Poste will launch the first “digital stamp”: an alphanumeric code obtained via a mobile application which will make it possible to easily frank mail. A step forward that illustrates the strategy of the public group to digitize its services.
La Poste is preparing to launch an astonishing innovation: the digital stamp. At the beginning of 2023, the public group will indeed enrich its mobile application – available for Android and iOS and which will be updated for the occasion – with a new function called Digital stamp – again this unfortunate anglicism… – which will make it possible to buy a virtual stamp via a smartphone or tablet at any time to frank a letter. The concept is very simple: the application generates a unique eight-character alphanumeric code – numbers and letters -, then copies it by hand, preferably in pen, on a letter to be franked, instead of the traditional glued stamp, then slip the envelope into any mailbox. A code valid for eight days, but to be used only once, of course: the operator’s sorting machines are responsible for analyzing the mail thus franked and validating the use of the code detected when it first appears. , to prevent fraud.
The digital stamp: a simple code to be copied by hand
The digital stamp “gives everyone, regardless of location or time”, the possibility of posting a letter “without having a stamp on hand, thanks to a unique eight-character code purchased on the La Poste application, in three clicks “explains the operator in its press release, welcoming this “a real industrial and technological feat“. This complementary solution to existing stamps – including those that are printed at home – will allow you to quickly frank your current correspondence for mail items weighing less than 20 g to France. A means of troubleshooting more than welcome, for people who don’t have a printer or don’t want to queue at a post office, for example.
To develop this simple and clever solution, Groupe La Poste called on Probayes, its subsidiary specializing in data and artificial intelligence, acquired in 2016. It was thus able to create algorithms derived from cryptography, which allow “generate several million secure codes with only eight characters” will be “sufficiently different from each other to both tolerate low reading errors and minimize the risk of fraud“. Currently being tested, this breakdown service illustrates the acceleration of the group’s digital transformation plan.
La Poste: a group in full digital transformation
This innovation is part of a much broader plan by La Poste, which intends to invest 800 million euros by 2025 in its network and in the digitalization of its services as part of its strategic plan “La Poste 2030: engaged for you”. It includes in particular the renovation of its offices and the essential modernization of its distribution network in order to meet the expectations and behavior of consumers, who are becoming increasingly connected and dependent on the Internet. It must be said that the postal network has already changed a great deal with a reduction in its post offices, which have gone from 10,000 in 2012 to 7,000 today, due to a massive drop in their attendance. Instead, La Poste is opening relays in merchants – it has 3,000 to date.
The operator also wants to take advantage of the boom in e-commerce to diversify its anchor points. It already has 16,000 Pickup points, local shops (bookstores, florists, tobacconists, grocery stores, etc.) where it is possible to drop off or pick up parcels, and 700 Pickup lockers, which allow customers to pick up or to drop off parcels in its post offices, in stations or in large retail chains. Their advantages are to offer more accessibility to its customers, more autonomy and above all longer opening hours – post offices are known to close very early. The group’s objective is to have set up 40,000 service points by 2025.