The red stamp lives its last days. Launched in 1849, the postage used to send mail in one working day will no longer be marketed from January 1, 2023. Its successor, the red e-letter, will be almost entirely dematerialized, but promises to ensure delivery within same deadlines.
An online letter… physically printed
To replace the red stamp, La Poste relies on its online letter service, also called “red e-letter”. The latter works quite intuitively. The sender writes his mail from a computer or a smartphone and sends it to La Poste from a dedicated tool. Once the postage of €1.48 (compared to €1.43 previously) has been paid online, the mail is printed by La Poste, close to the sender’s address, and finally delivered in the traditional way by the postman.
The e-letter service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In order to respect the deadline of one working day, the online letter must be delivered to the La Poste site before 8 p.m. the day before the tour of the postman.
For users who encounter difficulties with the online service, La Poste makes it possible to send their e-mail from a local office, on a machine or accompanied by a customer adviser. The hybrid sending service also allows you to send your red e-letter with a mail tracking option, as was already the case with the red stamp.
Reduced carbon footprint
The removal of the red stamp is part of a reduction in paper mailings for several years. With the generalization of digital communications via SMS or email, the disappearance of postage once acclaimed by the French was inevitable, says The Later. With the arrival of the letter online, the postal operator “therefore responds to the evolution of customer uses”.
At the same time, the approach illustrates the company’s new policy in terms of environmental impact. The development of La Poste’s mail range should enable a 25% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. A necessary transition which notably involves optimizing the “filling trucks” and the end of air transport to send mail in France.
Finally, from 1 January, La Poste will introduce a new turquoise stamp, called “Lettre Services Plus”, with the aim of sending paper documents in two days, on a priority basis. For this type of shipment, tracking will be included automatically. The green stamp, meanwhile, will always be marketed; delivery will take three days compared to two currently.