Sichuan Post Express Marketing Proposal

Express service has been provided since 1980's in China. As China going through enormous development, economy is booming, and potential market for express services is huge. Since 1982, China Post started its express service. Sichuan branch opened up this service in Sichuan two years later. Express service is proven to be a very profitable and important part of the Post industry. Profit from express services increased from RMB 7,000 to 1.8 billion in 2003, about 12.19% of the total post profit. It ranks the No.3 profitable service among all service sectors for China Post.However, the development of express service slowed down since the beginning of 1990's. At that time, express service was going through a very rough time: market penetration rate decreased; entire business environment became less competitive. Sichuan Post was going through a very tough period. Market share dropped from a dominate position to just about 65% of the domestic express market, and about 30% of the international express market. Growth rate decreased to only about 10% comparing to the fact that growth rate doubled at the time of this service was just offered. China Post was losing out on this business sector to its competitors.Many factors led to this disappointing situation for Sichuan Post: constrained policy, rigid system, and outdated network infrastructure. Apparently, at the beginning of the development for express services, China post had a lot of advantages over its competitors such as many post office locations, lots of industry related experience, fewer competitors, and growing market. As this business grows, competition increases, new marketing tactics were created and used by competitors. However, China post did not meet the needs of this growing market. Lack ofmarketing strategy brings Sichuan China post to a very disappointing position in this market. Therefore, the key issue for Sichuan Post is lack of sales and marketing strategy.In this paper, we will focus on how to plan and implement marketing strategy for Sichuan Post in terms of express business,according the marketing 4ps.