Photo credit; Lydia on Flickr

While overall mail volumes continue to decline, parcel volumes are on the rise, growing by 4% per year.

The rise in parcel shipments is due to the fact that more Kiwis are ordering items online, New Zealand Post chief operating officer Ashley Smout said.

But the rise in parcel volume cannot stop the fall of general mail volume, which is falling at a rate of about 8% per year. Smout said the decline was the biggest ever in 2013, compared with between 5% and 6% in the past.

He said the company is meeting this challenge with more advanced sorting procedures to reduce the amount of manual sorting and providing posties with different modes of transport.

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