About
What is a courier service ?
Courier (fr. courrier – runner, from lat. Currere – run, move quickly) – the person or company employed to deliver messages, letters and other correspondence, as well as small items.
History
In ancient times and Middle Ages messengers, messengers on horseback, who brought secret mail and diplomatic pouch, were called couriers.
For example, such was the state courier service, called cursus publicus introduced in the Roman Empire by Augustus.
In Russia courier mail service was founded in 1701 by Peter I in Smolensk and Archangel tracts for the delivery of emergency ambulance parcels with royal charters.
Military messengers are called state messengers (since mid-XVIII century), and those delivering diplomatic pouch – are called diplomatic couriers.
In the former Soviet Union, stamps “Courier” or the appropriate text box and service mark made by hand were often used on the correspondence of courier mail.
At the same time, postage, delivered by courier, belonged to a special category – “With a courier”.
Present time
Self-adhesive address form with the bar-code for the courier delivery company, Ger. trans-o-flex (Germany, 2005)
Currently, carriers are required to provide individual postal services under the following conditions: speed, security, delivery report, evaluation of delivery, specialty and personal service.
Couriers may also make mail delivery from time to time, for example, daily mail.
Courier Services in most cases are more expensive than regular mail service, which is due to the conditions for the provision of courier services.
As the major courier companies all correspondence, delivered by couriers, is usually divided into two parts: the actual mailbox (real post) – those newspapers, magazines, bills and other correspondence, to which the recipients have subscribed and paid for delivery, and the so-called “Courier”, “Commerce”- in different courier companies called in different ways, and those what the recipients did not order and what is sent at the expense of advertisers.
The latter is often considered by recipients to be junk mail (paper spam).
Unfortunately, at present, the proportion of paper spam in the total volume of spam mail, delivered by couriers, is growing.
Companies are struggling with this spam: the securities does not allow couriers to walk through stores and offices of the buildings, secretaries and reception separate spam from real mail.