An Post is working with Hurricane Commerce to help it develop its cross-border ecommerce capability. The Irish postal operator has integrated Hurricane’s Zephyr solution to enhance parcel data quality for advance electronic data on mail parcels.
The requirement for posts to meet a higher threshold for parcel data quality will be far greater from the 1st of January 2021, with Brexit and the enforcement of the STOP Act in the United States.
A further major change follows in March next year with the implementation of the Import Control System 2 (ICS2) requiring postal operators to make entry summary declarations on all packets and parcels.
Earlier this year, Hurricane Commerce launched its easy to integrate Zephyr data enhancement product which allows bulk clearance facilities to check the accuracy of data including product descriptions and HS6 codes, and receive additional pertinent or missing information all under a single quick check function.
Zephyr can process over 700 million requests a day and can, on an item by item API call base, provide for a real time feedback with response times of 100 milliseconds. The screening of a file consisting of a maximum of 10,000 items that is sent to Hurricane takes no more than 15 minutes.
“We are delighted to be helping An Post meet the mandatory requirements for data on mail parcels. An Post is an innovative, forward-looking post that is putting itself in the strongest possible position to not only be compliant but also to take advantage of the exponential growth in cross-border ecommerce.
The swathe of regulations coming into effect from the start of 2021 will result in parcels being held up and, in many cases, rejected unless they contain the required customs clearance data. Having the necessary complete and valid electronic data will ensure that mail items flow smoothly through customs and on to their intended customer.”
– David Spottiswood, co-founder, Hurricane Commerce
“We are investing heavily in our cross-border ecommerce capability and Hurricane will play an important part in this.
The continuing enhancement of the data quality on parcels will ensure we meet the regulatory requirements and provide benefits operationally, financially and, most importantly of all, in terms of customer satisfaction.”
– Cyril Mc Grane, Director of International Trade, An Post
