NZ Post plans to shut seven stores

Friday 13th May 2011

New Zealand Post is planning to close seven PostShop Kiwibank stores, and change another seven to PostCentres which will no longer offer Kiwibank services.

About 90 staff would be affected, although the number of redundancies had not been determined, NZ Post said today.

Four of the stores being closed are in Auckland, two are in Wellington, and one in Dunedin, while three of the stores changing to PostCentres are in Auckland, one is in New Plymouth, one in Palmerston North, one in Carterton, and one in Wellington.

The company had signalled it would be making changes to its store network, and today said the closures were being made to ensure it could continue to provide a commercially viable network of postal and banking services.

Customer behaviour had changed dramatically in the past five years, with more people paying bills and banking online, NZ Post said.

Factors such as ongoing migration to malls and large shopping complexes, along with people shopping near their workplaces rather than their homes were strong influences on where NZ Post located stores.

The onset of convenient technology and changing shopping habits meant the current PostShop Kiwibank store network did not reflect changes in customer behaviour, NZ Post said.

The company was investing in technology such as self-service kiosks which would provide access to services in more places and with greater convenience.

After the proposed changes - the first of which was expected to start in late June - NZ Post would have 910 postal outlets, of which 280 would be PostShop Kiwibank stores.

NZPA

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