• Sweden edition

Text messages to replace stamps in Sweden

Published: 7 Mar 11 09:28 CET | Double click on a word to get a translation
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/32436/20110307/

The Swedish postal service plans to give customers' tongues a rest by allowing them to pay their postage via mobile phone text message instead of stamps.

A similar system is set for launch in Denmark on April 1st allowing users to send a text message, prompting a special code to be sent back.

The code is then written down on the letter and serves as proof of the postage having been paid, the Sydsvenskan newspaper reports.

"We're very interested and are just now looking into a solution," Anders Åsberg, heard of marketing and development with Swedish postal service Posten AB.

Åsberg added that no date has been set to introduce the service in Sweden, but said it wouldn't be before the summer.

The postal services in both Sweden and Denmark are convinced that people will continue to send letters, despite the rise in other forms of communication, and paying postage by mobile phone is seen as a way of making the process easier.

The system under consideration in Sweden would allow users to use codes retrieved via text message for sending letters and parcels weighing up to two kilogrammes.

According to Åsberg, the risk of forged codes is no greater than it is with traditional stamps, as both must eventually be read by postal service scanners.

He also said there were no plans to raise postal rates in Sweden when the text message postage service is introduced.

TT/The Local/dl (news@thelocal.se)

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12:33 March 7, 2011 by Nemesis
This is not a good idea.
17:00 March 7, 2011 by Rey Stockholm
This is a great idea, saves queing to buy stamps or renting expensive and polluting franking machines
18:21 March 7, 2011 by thesinger
I love stamps .. I am a stamp collector for so long.. they are killing me by doing this heheheheh
19:56 March 7, 2011 by underskyofsweden
It will be more welcome if they let the people free to choose one of them up to their interests because the traditional stamps should be saved too!
20:17 March 7, 2011 by daveevans
I worked on the original torget.se back in 1996 where they tried to get people to buy things online which would boost revenue of the swedish postal system. That wsa the largest website in Europe for a long time, looks like the site is long gone. I wish the US would allow texting for more shipping and billing. Once again we lag far behind the rest of the world.
22:02 March 7, 2011 by EP
Sad ... stamp design is art ... this just cheapens everything. Like Kindle, like facebook ... Swedes are already robots ... this will make them even worse.
08:45 March 8, 2011 by imonx
keep your stamps and buy more now the will soon be scare and extinct good business in future for stamp collectors
05:21 March 9, 2011 by KPOM
How, exactly, do we lag "far behind the rest of the world" when only Sweden and in a few weeks Denmark allow the text postage system? In case you didn't realize, in the US, we can purchase postage for parcels large and small online and print it out on our computers. We also have the automated postal machines at the post offices. While I agree we should add something like the texting ability, or at least online stamp capabilities without using an expensive service like stamps.com, let's not understate our own capabilities here.
08:55 March 9, 2011 by Thomas Dolby
*Swedes Texting, why am I not surprised. This 'Texting' can be dangerous, as I've seen people, *Stupid people, texting while driving a car, or even worse, while peddling on a bicycle, and almost running down pedestrians.

I hope to see a law passed against this, as well as people talking on a 'hand held' whilst driving, as it does hamper ones ability to drive safely on the roads.
10:06 March 9, 2011 by Hanne
The code is then written down LOL this really is april 1st.
18:12 March 9, 2011 by J Jack
A kid rode her bike against my car while texting, no crash, she just looked at me like sorry uh. In the US I could have been sued for hit and run. Anyway, this whole walking down the street texting is A social behavior which is why this stamp idea will fit Sweden perfectly... except the elderly, the blind and the limbless.
14:32 March 11, 2011 by janerowena
Surely the cost of postage would be raised by having to add the cost of the text message?

I prefer our UK system of paying online and printing off a label, if a post office is too far away.
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