• The first branch office was opened in Barcelona at the address C/Gran de Sant Andreu, 413, Sant Andreu, 08030. According to the CEO of Nova Post in Spain, Oleksandr Pavlovsky, two more branches are planned to be opened later: one more in Barcelona and another one in Madrid.

And over the course of the year, we will actively develop the network of parcel delivery service points together with our partners. We plan to open five or six delivery points in each city along the coast: from Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, to Murcia, Malaga, and Estepona, as well as in Madrid,

Oleksandr Pavlovsky said.

• The delivery time from Ukraine is from 8 days. You can send parcels, documents, cargo up to 1000 kilograms. The post office will work every day.
  • Documents up to 1 kg — UAH 1,000;
  • Parcels up to 2 kg — UAH 1,050;
  • Parcels up to 10 kg — UAH 1,700;
  • Parcels up to 30 kg — UAH 3,000;
  • Cargo from 30 to 1,000 kg — UAH 120 per kg.

Since May, a courier delivery to any address will also become available. An additional payment of UAH 100 will be required for shipments of up to 30 kg, or UAH +120 for every 100 kg.

AIN reminds our readers that Nova Post has opened 89 branch offices in Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, and Moldova.

• The Czech Republic became the fourth country in Europe where Nova Post has opened its offices. The first city was Prague, where the office was opened on June 5 of the same year. At that time, the company announced that it plans to invest 3 million Czech crowns in development in the Czech Republic.
• According to Andrii Artemenko, the CEO of Nova Post in the country, this year they plan to open offices in the cities of Pilsen, Ostrava, and Ceske Budejovice. And also increase the number of parcel delivery points.
• AIN reminds that Nova Poshta opened 89 offices in Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, Italy, Hungary, and Moldova.

How does it work

The office is located at Dr. M. Horákové 11/76, working from Monday to Saturday. The delivery time is from five working days.

The cost of delivery from Ukraine to the Czech Republic:

• Documents up to 1 kg — UAH 500.
• Parcels up to 2 kg — UAH 550.
• Parcels up to 10 kg — UAH 850.
• Parcels up to 30 kg — UAH 1,800.

In addition, Ukrainians can order delivery by Nova Post courier of up to 200 kg from Ukraine to any address in the city of Liberec. Delivery by courier is paid additionally + UAH 100 for shipments up to 30 kg or + UAH 250 for every 100 kg. The company’s website has a special calculator that helps calculate the cost of the parcel.

• The first Nova Post office is located in Budapest at 1066, Teréz. körút 8;
• Customers can receive and send documents, parcels, and cargo up to 100 kg to Ukraine;
• The branch works every day. The delivery time from Ukraine to Hungary is from 5 days, and the cost is:
  • Documents — UAH 250;
  • Parcels up to 2 kg — UAH 400;
  • Parcels up to 10 kg — UAH 600;
  • Parcels up to 30 kg — UAH 1,200;
  • Cargo from 30 to 100 kg — UAH 40 per kilogram.

The company added that delivery by Nova Post couriers to any address throughout Hungary is also available. Customers can order a courier through the website or mobile application and pay for it additionally + UAH 100 for shipments up to 30 kg or + UAH 250 for every 100 kg.

Earlier, Nova Post expanded to Latvia, opening a branch in Riga. The company’s website also contains information that Italy, France, and Austria will be the following countries to be launched.

• The first Nova Post branch opened in Tallinn, at the address Estonia pst 7, 10412. Сlients can receive and send documents, parcels and cargo up to 1,000 kg to Ukraine. Department works every day.
• The cost of delivery from Ukraine to Estonia is:
  • documents – UAH 250;
  • parcels up to 2 kg – UAH 400;
  • parcels up to 10 kg – UAH 600
  • parcels up to 30 kg – UAH 1200;
  • cargo from 30 to 100 kg – UAH 40 for each kg;
• Ambassador of Ukraine to the Republic of Estonia Maksym Kononenko was among the guests at the opening of the branch:

“I am convinced that thanks to the efforts of such companies as Nova Post, Ukraine will receive new partners, investors and like-minded people, to help bring the long-awaited moment of victory closer. I call on Estonian business to support these efforts with partnership and fruitful cooperation.”

• Customers can also call a courier delivery to any address throughout Estonia via the Nova Post website and mobile app. Delivery or pick-up of the shipment by courier from the address costs additional UAH 100 for shipments up to 30 kg, or UAH 250 for every 100 kg.

The company also added that it has invested €75,000 in the launching and development in Estonia, and the same ammount in Latvia. Nova Post plans to open the branch in Riga in a week.

To remind, Nova Post has already opened 66 branches in Estonia, Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany, Slovakia, and Moldova.

• The first Nova Post branch was launched in Bratislava, at the address Dunajská 7495/14. Clients can receive documents, parcels and cargo up to 100 kg from Ukraine. The branch works every day.

“Our main task is to logistically connect European countries with Ukraine. We want Ukrainians in Slovakia to receive the service they are used to at home in Ukraine. And Slovak business will be able to enter the Ukrainian market, where there are 30 million active consumers,“

says Oleksandr Lysovets, CEO of Nova Post Europe.

Oleksandr also added that Nova Post has already invested more than €100,000 to enter the Slovakian market. The company plans to continue developing its network there and provide the possibility of delivery to partner post offices throughout the country.

• Nova Post courier delivery is also available for Ukrainians to any address throughout Slovakia. Delivery from Slovakia to Ukraine takes from 5 days.
• The cost of delivery from Ukraine to Slovakia:
  • documents – €12;
  • parcels up to 2 kg – €15;
  • parcels up to 10 kg – €20;
  • parcels up to 30 kg – €35;
  • parcels from 30 to 100 kg – €1.2 for each kg;
  • delivery by courier is paid additionally €3 for shipments up to 30 kg or +€8 for each kg for shipments from 31 to 100 kg.

To date, Nova Post has already opened 62 branches in Poland, Lithuania, Czechia, Romania, and Moldova.

• The Nova Post branch was launched in Prague at the address Pod Višňovkou 1664/29, where customers can send and receive parcels up to 1000 kg daily.
• Furthermore, this year, the company plans to open additional Nova Post branches in Prague and Brno and invest 3 million CZK in the development of the company in Czechia.

“We will deliver any goods from all over the world to Czechia in the shortest possible time. And we will also make it easier for Czech companies to enter the Ukrainian consumer market, where more than 30 million customers are waiting for them,”

Vyacheslav Klymov, co-owner of the Nova Poshta group of companies, commented.

• The branch is open for customers every day. The delivery time is around 5 working days.
• The cost of delivery from Ukraine to Czechia:
  • documents – UAH 250;
  • parcels up to 2 kg – UAH 400;
  • parcels up to 10 kg – UAH 600;
  • parcels up to 30 kg – UAH 1,200;
  • cargo from 31 kg to 1000 kg – UAH 40 per 1 kg of weight.
• Nova Post announced its entry into the Czech market in May 2023. To date, Nova Post already actively develops in Poland, where it has 30 branches, and is also expands to the Baltic countries, as well as Romania and Germany.

• The first two Nova Post branches will be open in June in the capital of Czechia, Prague. One department will be able to receive parcels weighing up to 30 kg, the other will be a cargo department with the ability to handle parcels of up to 1000 kg.
• Another branch office will be opened later in the city of Brno.

• AIN.Capital reminds hat Nova Post is actively developing in Poland, where it already has three dozen branches, and it is also expanding to the Baltic countries, as well as Romania and Germany.

• The first post office in Warsaw was opened on October 3, 2022. Today, there are 30 Nova Post locations in Poland. On March 20, Nova Post was launched in Lithuania. This is the second European state where Nova Post launched its offices, after Poland. 
• Most of them were opened in Warsaw – 6, Kraków – 4, 2 branches each in Lublin, Wrocław, Poznan and Gdańsk, and one each in Białystok, Bydgoszcz, Szczecin, Częstochowa, Kielce, Jelenia Góra, Goszów Wielkopolski, and Opole.

• In six new post offices, customers can receive and send parcels up to 100 kg. Also, four freight offices, up to 1000 kg, were opened in such cities as Bydgoszcz, Jelenia Hura, Opole, and Kraków. More details about each post office can be found here.
• Nova Post informs that mostly cosmetics, perfumes, dietary supplements, household chemicals, food products in factory packaging that do not require a special temperature regime, and clothes are delivered from Poland to Ukraine. The delivery time is from 3 days. 
• By the end of June, Nova Post aims to open 50 offices in all Polish provinces. Also, the company will continue its foreign expansion in neighboring countries. In 2023, our financial company NovaPay will launch its mobile app and conquer Europe as a financial service.

AIN.Capital found out why Nova Poshta is not afraid of competition in the Polish market, how it is doing in Moldova, and what the company’s plans are for 2023.

Now Poland is the second-large market of Nova Poshta beyond Ukraine. Why Poland? Why is this market so attractive for the company?

Statistics say over 9 million people left Ukraine (Reuters referring to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), three million of which Poland has welcomed. During the full-scale Russian invasion, we have got an increasingly growing number of requests like: “When will Nova Poshta follow Ukrainians who are temporarily abroad?” We knew people needed to send their luggage from home while leaving with a minimum in hand. So that’s how we introduced our new product, a package from home in Ukraine to Europe with a 75% discount.

But we had plans for Poland before the big war. And it just forced us to follow our clients who migrated from Ukraine. So we started looking for a credible partner in Poland with an extensive network and close to Ukrainians, allowing them to receive packages from home comfortably. Our choice was InPost, which has the largest parcel locker network in Poland (about 20,000) and courier delivery to any settlement on the Polish map.

Since then, Ukrainians got a chance to receive their belongings from home safely. This partnership also resulted in 2.5 times cost decrease for the delivery to Poland. We also planned to help our citizens quickly and easily send parcels home and back. So our next step was opening our own offices in Poland with those two services: “A package from home” and “A package for home.”

We are not currently competing with local postal operators in Poland. We focus only on helping our displaced people from Ukraine.

How many post offices do you have in Poland? What services are available there?

We opened our first post office in Warsaw on October 3. Today, there are 18 Nova Post locations in eight Polish cities: Six of them are in Warsaw, two each in Krakow, Poznan, Gdansk, Wroclaw, Lublin, and one each in Rzeszów and Łódź. To open our branches, we are looking for places with a concentration of our citizens.

All our branches are open every day, and we hire Ukrainians to work as operators. The delivery time takes an average of five days.

You can send clothes, shoes, food products in its original packaging, appliances, generators, batteries, etc. However, there is a list of goods that are not allowed to be shipped by customs, such as tobacco, alcohol, narcotic substances, money, medicines, etc. You can find the full list here.

You can also easily send a parcel from any Nova Poshta office in Ukraine to Poland: to a Nova Post branch, to pick up station or by inPost courier delivery.

What are your first operation results in Poland? What are your numbers?

At the beginning of October 2022, 90 to 100 parcels went to Ukraine daily. This number has been assured thanks to the NP Shopping service as well, which was launched long before. Our customers can buy anything online in Europe, and we deliver it by using our warehouses.

Every new point of sale in Poland resulted in growing revenue. Nowadays, 800 parcels are sent from Ukraine to Poland daily, 25% of which are conducted between Nova Poshta units, and 1,500 go in the opposite direction, with a 55% share correspondingly. Warm clothes like coats, jackets, and boots are the most sent to Poland, and personal summer things return to Ukraine.

What is about Moldova? Please share some information about locations, services, and market numbers there.

In 2014, Nova Poshta entered the Moldovan courier delivery market. In 2021, we had 19 standalone post offices in the biggest cities countrywide (Chișinău, Bălți, Cahul, Edineț, Căușeni, Orhei, Fălești, etc.) with the largest locker network, including 300 units.

Today, the company is on TOP 3 Express Delivery Providers in Moldova. Last few years, there was a stable growth of 20-25% per annum. For example, 2021 ended with 216,000 parcels and cargo. And for 9 months of 2022, we already have reached 308,000 or 30% more.

In our offices, customers can use the whole package of services, from the in-country parcel and document delivery to cargo delivery worldwide. Most ordered in Moldova are goods in beauty & health and home electronics categories.

To support Ukrainian refugees in Moldova, we decided to lower our rates double. We want our citizens to have a stable and easy connection with their homeland. This year, we will continue to develop the network of post offices and parcel lockers in Moldova, introduce new digital tools, and improve our service to make it more comfortable and convenient for customers to use the services.

Nova Poshta Moldova also actively participates in humanitarian aid activities. Since March 2022, Nova Poshta, in cooperation with the Congress of Ukrainians in Moldova, delivered over 10,000 kg of humanitarian aid to charitable organizations and hospitals in Ukraine. It was drugs and essential medical equipment.

What other markets does Nova Poshta operate in?

We currently have our own post offices and pick-up stations in three countries: Ukraine, Moldova, and Poland. However, our Nova Poshta Global can deliver an international parcel or cargo from Ukraine to 200 countries and territories of the world.

Also, for Ukrainians who want to shop on the websites of international online stores that do not offer direct delivery to Ukraine, Nova Poshta Global has developed the NP Shopping service. This service helps people to buy clothes, appliances, household items and more from online stores in nine countries: The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Poland, France, Spain, Turkey, and the Czech Republic, and order delivery to any Nova Poshta post office or pick-up station.

Please tell us about the plans of Nova Poshta for both the Ukrainian and global markets. Which countries or cities are waiting?

This year, we are going to open two new terminals in Odesa and Kyiv. The construction works renewed in the summer. We will continue to automate operational routines to accelerate the delivery.

Nova Poshta will continue its foreign expansion in neighboring countries. In 2023, our financial company NovaPay will launch its mobile app and conquer Europe as a financial service.

We will also improve our NP Shopping service and make it so simple that when a customer enters the app, it will be like visiting a regular online store. We continue to negotiate aircraft for our own airline, and we will be able to tell you more about this later. The plans are ambitious, as always.

In September, NovaPay opened an office in Lithuania. Have you already hired a team? What is the team working on?

We want to unite Ukrainian families and friends separated by the war. We want to strengthen Ukrainian business in the world, and provide foreigners with not only high-quality logistics, but also financial services. To achieve this ambitious goal, NovaPay decided to open an office in Europe.

Currently, part of the senior management is working in Vilnius to form a team. We plan to obtain an EMI (Electronic Money Institution) license in Lithuania. The EMI license gives you the right to provide payment services to customers, open accounts, issue payment cards, and much more.

According to Lithuanian law, in order to obtain a license, a company must have financial monitoring, lawyers, accountants, and other employees on site. We are hiring the specialists who understand the intricacies of the local market and the Baltic countries.

What are NovaPay’s global development plans?

The discussion about entering the international market has continued for several years. As a result, we plan to enter the European market in two significant areas:

1. Supporting financial transactions at Nova Poshta offices abroad, similar to our Ukrainian business.

Nova Poshta is expanding and entering European markets. NovaPay’s goal in this project is to support all the financial services abroad provided for Ukrainians, plus cross-border transactions, lending, and many other benefits.

However, for NovaPay to start operating fully in Europe, we must obtain licenses and certification in the European Union.

• We plan to develop a separate financial service, primarily for Ukrainians and secondarily for Europeans, which will be localized for several markets first.

The project’s announcement will depend on how quickly we get the license. We will make a big announcement after obtaining permits and developing the product, which we are actively working on.

• Nova Post’s branch office opened in Vilnius at the address Žalgirio g. 92, LT-09303.
• It is a cargo department using which you can send and receive goods from Ukraine weighing up to 1000 kg.
• The office will work daily.
• The delivery time is around 5 working days.

The cost of delivery is:

• up to 2 kg — UAH 300,
• up to 10 kg — UAH 450,
• up to 30 kg — UAH 600,
• from 31 kg to 1000 kg — UAH 25 per 1 kg of weight.

“I am sure that Nova Post will surprise Lithuanians and become a reliable partner as well as support for our future customers here. We’re fast, we’re reliable, we’re flexible and customer-focused, and we don’t plan to stop. Already in May, we will open a new office in the city of Kaunas, so that even more people can use the fast delivery from Nova Post. In addition, this year we’re going to enter the markets of Estonia and Latvia,”

Volodymyr Popereshniuk, co-founder of Nova Post, says.

To read more about the delivery from Lithuania, follow the link.

This is the second tranche of the investment. The first one was in mid-November and was reported by AIN.Business. The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

About The Good Plastic Company

The Good Plastic Company is an international brand incorporated in the United Kingdom, with production facilities in Bila Tserkva, Ukraine. The company produces 1.4*2.8 m plastic panels from granules of recycled plastic — used household appliances, disposable forks and spoons, yogurt bottles, bumpers, and ocean trash.

Founder and CEO of The Good Plastic Company is a serial entrepreneur, William Chizhovsky.

As Fedoriv says in his post, on December 17, the Ukrainian facility moved to the industrial park in Bila Tserkva and increased its productivity by three times. It was previously reported that the plant could process 1,000 to 2,000 tons of plastic per year.

“The production lines work seven days a week in two shifts. About 98% of the products are exported. Our key markets are the Netherlands, the UK, France, Norway, Spain, Italy, and Japan. The main new equipment will be delivered by the end of April. We implement the philosophy of Lean (Kaizen). We are growing,” Andriy noted.

Who is the richest in the IT industry

• 8th place in Top 100 richest Ukrainians in 2021 is taken by the co-founder of the UK-based fintech startup Revolut, Vlad Yatsenko. His net worth is estimated by NV at $1.277B. In July of 2021, Revolut raised $800M, and its valuation increased sixfold: from $5.5B in 2020 to $33B.
• 14th spot is occupied by the founder of the aerospace firm Firefly Aerospace, Max Polyakov, with a fortune of about $540M. In May of 2021, Firefly Aerospace raised nearly $200M, and its valuation went way beyond $1B.

According to AIN.UA’s estimates, the ranking takes just one of Polyakov’s assets, Firefly Aerospace, into account. It was valued at more than $1B even before its launch. The worth of his other aerospace companies and all the IT businesses are not factored in.

• 17th place is held by the owner of Rozetka Vladyslav Chechotkin. According to NV, Chechotkin’s net worth is $472M.

The share of Vladyslav Chechotkin is often miscalculated, with the total attributed to Chechotkin alone. But this includes shares of two entrepreneurs, Vladyslav and Iryna Chechotkin, who own the company that the stake in Rozetka belongs to. Thus, according to AIN.UA’s own calculations, the figure of $472M reported by Novoye Vremya is in the range of $359M to $526M but should be attributed to both stakeholders.

• Spots 23, 24, and 25 are taken by Alex Shevchenko, Dmytro Lider, and Max Lytvyn, the co-founders of Grammarly, an online spelling and grammar checker. NV estimates each one’s net worth at $386M.

In calculating the wealth of the co-founders of Grammarly, the valuation of the company at $2.3B should be factored in, as cited by PitchBook and confirmed by the American Forbes magazine. Considering that the latest round took place back in 2019 (the co-founders’ shares have remained the same) and their cumulative share being 76%, the valuation of the fortunes of Alex Shevchenko, Dmytro Lider, and Max Lytvyn, according to AIN.UA, should be about $582M each, which is $196M more than cited by Novoye Vremya.

• The founder and CEO of Ajax Systems, Aleksandr Konotopskyi, is in 26th place, with a net worth of about $380M.
• No. 30 is occupied by one of the co-founders of GitLab company, Dmytro Zaporozhets, with a fortune of approximately $375M. On October 14, 2021, Gitlab went public on Nasdaq. Today its shares are listed on the market at $113.75 per share, and its total capitalization exceeds $15B. Dmytro Zaporozhets owns 2.5% of the firm’s stock, hence his high position in the ranking.
• 37th spot is taken by the founder of People.ai, Oleg Rogynskyy. NV estimates his net worth at $279M. In August of 2021, People.ai raised $100M as part of a new investment round and was valued at $1.1B. As such, the company became a unicorn. Besides, Oleg Rogynskyy has mentioned that, given the current size of the company, it is time to think about an IPO.
• 42nd and 51st positions are held by the co-founders of the IT company SoftServe Taras Kytsmey ($245M) and Yaroslav Lyubinets ($199M). Taras Vervega ($167M), Yuriy Vasylyk ($131M), and Oleh Denys ($130M) are ranked 63rd, 77th, and 78th, respectively.
• 48th place in Top 100 richest Ukrainians in 2021 is taken by the founder and director of Terrasoft company, Katherine Kostereva, with a net worth of $207M, according to NV.

The calculations by AIN.UA show that the value of Katherine Kostereva’s share is significantly lower. At the time of leaving Terrasoft, Alexander Popov owned a 44.75% stake, valued at $51M. Based on the information that he and Kostereva had equal shares, hers should be valued at $51M too, instead of the $207M cited in the NV ranking.

• Oleksandr Kosovan, CEO and founder of MacPaw, is ranked 52nd. His net worth is estimated at $196M.
• Spots 53, 98, 99, and 100 are taken by the co-founders of Fintech Band, the developers of monobank Dmytro Dubilet with $196M, Oleg Gorokhovskyi — $100M, Yevheniya Kryvenko (Yatsenko) — $100M, and Mykhaylo Rogalskiy — $100M.

Who else has made it into the Top 100 richest Ukrainians in 2021

• 22nd place is occupied by the director general and co-owner of Fozzy Group, Volodymyr Kostelman. His fortune is estimated at $388M. Beside him, the ranking also features Roman Chyhir ($175M) and Oleh Sotnykov ($175M), ranked 58th and 59th, respectively. Fozzy Group also has an IT subdivision, and recently, they have tested a service to compete with zakaz.ua.
• The net worth of $346M has earned 32nd place to Stepan Chernovetskyi, head of the investment company Chernovetskyi Investment Group having some IT projects in its portfolio.
• No. 39 and No. 40 are taken by the co-founders of Nova Poshta, Volodymyr Popereshnyuk and Viacheslav Klymov, with a fortune of about $273M each.
• The developer Vasyl Khmelnytsky with a net worth of $223M is ranked 43rd. His main asset is UFuture Investment Group.
• 91st spot is occupied by the owner of the multistore Comfy, Stanislav Ronis. His net worth is estimated at $111M.

The richest five

At the top of the ranking, like in the last year, comes Rinat Akhmetov, whose fortune is valued at $11.5B (to put this into context: last year, Akhmetov’s wealth was estimated at nearly just half as much, $6.6m). The top 5 also include Viktor Pinchuk ($2.6B), Vadym Novynskyi ($2.44B), Petro Poroshenko ($1.52B), and Kostyantyn Zhevago ($1.497B).

• The airline is called Supernova Airlines. It will have its own fleet of planes and will be subordinated to Nova Posta Global.
• Flights will be conducted from the international airports Boryspil and Lviv, delivering international shipments.
• According to Yuriy Benevitskiy, CEO of Nova Poshta Global, until today, Nova Poshta has transported cargo through partner airlines. Due to growing freight volume, the company decided to launch its own airline to transport cargo internationally.

This news will be updated.

The company explains the increase of orders on the AliExpress website with the launch of delivery directly to the Nova Poshta post office. To place an order, now you need to specify the AliExpress Standard Shipping option and select the nearest post office on the map.

During the quarantine, the number of orders from customers from the Zhytomyr region has doubled. However, the most active buyers on international websites remain residents of large cities: Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Lviv.

Average order amount and top goods

Not only the number of orders on Aliexpress has increased, but also the average check. If it amounted $6.6 before the quarantine, now it has grown to $11.6. Among orders, the number of protective equipment and medical products has increased: masks, respirators, thermometers, etc.

The most popular categories of goods remain:

• phone covers,
• cables,
• chargers,
• clothes, shoes, underwear,
• dietary supplements.

Top 5 Foreign Online Shopping Sites

Nova Poshta has also published a list of the most popular foreign online shopping sites among its customers:

• Aliexpress,
• iHerb,
• eBay,
• Amazon,
• 6p.m.

“Nova Poshta is one of the country’s largest taxpayers. We are constantly investing in the development of not only our company but also our country,” says Oleksandr Bulba, CEO of Nova Poshta.

Nova Poshta is constantly opening new offices – there are already more than 5,300 of them, mainly in small towns and villages. The company is building innovative terminals to process parcels faster, launching an air freight service to make even quicker deliveries between the east and west of Ukraine.

All our innovations are implemented to benefit our customers, and they appreciate it. 73 out of 100 people are ready to recommend our company – it is an excellent customer loyalty index.

From January to September, Nova Poshta delivered about 150 million parcels, cargos, and documents to 8 million customers. Of those, nearly 2 million were international shipments.

It is important to note that in September 2019, Nova Poshta opened its third innovative terminal in Lviv – LEO.

For more information on products and services, please visit: https://novaposhta.ua/

Most popular online stores

• eBay (28% of all parcels)
• Amazon (22%)
• 6pm (over 13%)
• Carter`s
• Victoria`s Secret
• H&M

What’s trending

Most often, buyers order clothes and shoes, children’s clothing, gadgets, cosmetics.

According to the director of Nova Poshta International, Yuriy Benevitsky, Ukrainians are attracted by prices, which, as a rule, are lower than in Ukraine, a large selection and good quality of goods.

The cost of an average parcel is $66, and the average weight is 1.6 kg.

Buyer’s profile

Most active buyers are males (59%) aged 25-34 (53%).

Kyivites, who order goods from overseas most often, are followed by residents of Dnipro, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv.

Growth of deliveries from overseas

According to the company, over the past five months, the demand for delivery through NP Shopping service has increased by 27% as compared to the same period last year. There’s a 25% increase in number of Ukrainians buying goods from abroad.

TOP locations

NP Shopping users order most items from the US. However, the popularity of other locations is also rapidly growing.

Thus, over 5 months the number of parcels from the UK has increased by almost 80%, and from Poland – more than 3 times.

NP Shopping is a service of Nova Poshta International that allows to make orders in the US and Europe’s online stores and collect your shipment from any convenient location in Ukraine.

Artem Volkhonskyi has been the head of digital products development at Nova Poshta since 2014. When he first joined the company, Nova Poshta already had a mobile application developed by third-party contractors.

It was the first mobile application in the Ukrainian logistics market.

“Mobile applications of companies were the hype of that time. At one time there was the same story with the sites: everyone wanted one but did not understand why.”

“Nova Poshta” has launched an application for the sake of experiment. It was rather an image step having its own application for a large company. “It was more informational in its nature, it was another place where I could, same as on the website, type in the invoice number and see the status of the parcel, or search for the nearest branch,” Volkhonskyi says.

The company did not promote the application, they simply loaded it into the market, where it had been located for several years by itself. And it turned out to be quite popular: by 2014, it had about 150,000 active users who came by themselves, since the company did not promote the application at all.

It was clear that the app can cover most of the customers’ needs. However, the first version was already technically old. In addition, in 2015 there was a rebranding of “Nova Poshta”, and the application had to at least correspond to the new design.

Old Nova Poshta application, stopped operating in 2015

The question of developing a new solution from scratch arose, because modifying the old version was unprofitable. First, the functionality has not changed for several years, so it required a complete update. Secondly, the technologies did not stand still, they have changed a lot and now they gave developers more opportunities in speed, ease of support, etc.

“Further use of the old application and complication of its functionality would lead to the fact that every month we would spend more and more money to support it. Therefore, the team focused on making a completely new application as simple and convenient as possible, including one killer feature that would set us apart from the competition and in the market in general.”

A new version

Artem began by analyzing the needs in order to detect the client’s “point of pain.” As it turned out, the most popular service in the company’s online channels is parcel tracking: 65% of customers do not use anything at all except tracking. “It became clear that the killer feature should be somewhere in this place. We solve one problem and immediately simplify the life of more than half of our clients,” he says.

The team decided to simplify tracking as much as possible, and it is better to make the application that will track packages itself instead of the client doing it.

“The most difficult thing is to make it easy. We did a difficult thing to implement, but it is simple for the client: all the packages that I send from my Nova Posh loyalty program account or the ones that are heading to me get into the application automatically. It works by the principle of e-mail: I see all incoming and outgoing traffic.”

At that time, no one in the world had such a realization, says Volkhonskyi, until the middle of this year, it was unique even among foreign peers.

It took 9 months to develop a new version. The team was in a hurry: “Nova Poshta” wanted to present a new application at the large industry event of E-Commerce Congress. “At the event we came out with a beta version. We understood that some work scenarios required improvements, so after the presentation we continued to fix bugs and finish the product,” says Artem.

More than 2 million users by the end of the year

Although the new application was much more convenient than the old one, people are reluctant to part with things they are used to. Realizing that the replacement of 150,000 users of the old application may cause dissatisfaction, the team decided not to close 1.0 version for a while and migrate gradually.

“Of course, it was not painless. We left the old application and offered a new one, only for those who wanted to have choice. We transferred users to version 2.0 with waves up to 5-10% per month. The old application was closed only after six months after the launch of 2.0 version.”

The next year we were working on bugs, tightening technical debts and collecting feedback. Nevertheless, the user base grew rapidly: in the first year after the release, it was possible to attract 350,000 new active users without large-scale promo. They popularized applications only through their own channels: branches, call-center, website, and email-mailings.

Today, three years after the release, the application has 1.7 million users, which is about 25-30% of all Nova Poshta clients. By the end of the year, according to the company’s calculations, there will be more than 2 million of users.

“The application has a lot of opportunities that people lacked: managing their packages, ordering additional services (forwarding, changing data and returning), paying for services using a bank card, and creating a shipment directly in the application. This functionality was created according to the recommendations of users, and today almost 1 million shipments per month are being created in the application,” notes Volkhonskyi.

According to him, the user base is growing gradually, without any serious bursts. “Promotion through mass channels does not give such an effect on the number of active users. This should be a conscious choice of the client – the one must understand what he/she really needs. The client wants to cover the maximum of his/her needs promptly and without a physical presence in the departments.”

However, there are customers who use the services of the company rarely, so they do not see the need for an application for themselves. For these customers, the digital team plans to launch a convenient site with a mobile version.

What does the application give to the company?

According to Volkhonskyi, creating a mobile application, first of all “Nova Poshta” wanted to give the client a service that will exceed his expectations. “We were faced with the task of providing such a level of services so that the company would be perceived out of competition and there were no alternatives.”

At one time, PrivatBank did something similar. They brought banking to the deep blue ocean, which no one could reach, thereby securing a competitive advantage for the years ahead.

We also want to minimize the client’s contact with our employees, give the most convenient and understandable digital service so that a person could do his or her usual activities and not spend time on trips to the department, signing statements, etc.,” – explains Artem.

A side effect is saving money for the company itself. After all, if the client solves all the issues within the application, it reduces the load on the offices and contact center operators. The company was unable to assess the economic effect of the application in money or specific figures, however, according to Volkhonskyi, the cost of its development and support is many times lower than the funds saved for the company with its help.

“Only in September 2018, we recorded more than 1.7 million active users who created 915,000 online documents. And this figure is growing by at least 10% every month. At the same time, in the mobile application, our clients traced more than 8.5 million express-invoices, issued almost 70,000 applications for additional services (call forwarding, return and change of data) and made 137,000 online payments.”

To encourage users to switch to online services, Nova Poshta launched a motivational program using bonuses. For example, if a client has made a shipment in a mobile application, he receives 2 – 2.5 UAH to the bonus account. And if you combine a lot of shipments to the registry, simplifying their registration for the company in several times (when sending through the registry, all markings are printed immediately with one code), then you receive 3 – 3.5 UAH for each express invoice to your bonus account. Accumulated bonuses can be used to pay for services in the future.

Team

Today, the inhouse team, which is engaged in digital projects, is still relatively small as for a company of the “Nova Poshta” scale – it’s only 11 people. However, until recently there were only five of them.

Two full-time employees are the product owner, who is responsible for developing the application, and the head of the mobile direction, who is responsible for integrating the application with other systems in the infrastructure, as well as several third-party specialists who work directly on the application on an ongoing basis.

The mobile application is only part of the cloud infrastructure in which most of their digital products will work: a business office, a courier application and a website. More than 30 people work on these projects in total.

It was not easy collecting such team. At the time of launching the development of 2.0 version, Nova Poshta was not ready to hire many specialists. “We began to look for a reliable contractor with highly qualified specialists, with whom we could cooperate as partners. We were looking not for a programmer who writes code for money, but for the one who would see the value of having such a client as “Nova Poshta”, and would grow with us and our requirements,” – explains Volkhonskyi.

The problem is that the teams that broadcast themselves to the Ukrainian market are much smaller than those oriented to the West. According to Artem, many work through Upwork and do not want to deal with Ukrainian customers at all. Therefore, the choice was small and the stage of selection of the contractor was stretched for a long time.

Today, projects are conducted in Jira, the contractor’s experts form product backlogs and two-week sprints with tasks for developers in the team. They also participate in the support of the mobile application and work with errors that are submitted by users.

Mobile application as a driver for change

It was originally intended to fine-tune the old application for the Nova Poshta company, which was updated after the rebranding. The result was the opposite: the company had to change for the application. In order for the auto tracking feature implemented in the application and other innovations to work stably, it is necessary to change the internal processes in the company.

“Over the 9 months we worked the application, a lot of changes happened in the “Nova Poshta” system. We had to completely change a number of processes in order to give customers a good user experience.”

Currently on their agenda Nova Poshta has a 3.0 version of the application. “Over the years, we have gathered enough feedback and data on user behavior to realize the need to re-launch. It will be a completely new mobile application, with different approaches in development and it will become even easier for the client,” says Volkhonskyi. The main target audience is small and medium business, but at the same time it will also satisfy the needs of private clients.

The next step will be the launch of a business office, and then a site that will simplify the relationship of corporate clients with the company through automation. The third step is to re-launch the site. “In order for us to implement all the planned functionality on the site, the company will have to change a lot in the direction of simplification, clarity and predictability again,” Volkhonskyi explains. “We will seriously change part of our tracking and notification systems before we even start working on the site itself.”

The Swedish corporation is preparing for opening in Ukraine. City-format IKEA shop will be located in Ocean Mall. The opening is planned on September 01, 2019.

NP Logistics will provide fulfillment and delivery services. The first category includes the goods storage in the warehouses and formation of orders for receiver. Nova Poshta describes the cooperation as follows:

The principle is that a customer places an order with the Internet shop by selecting a laptop, baby crib, and dishwashing liquid. The shop does not keep goods in its warehouse and uses the fulfillment service that is all the goods are kept at the NP Logistics warehouse. The Company employees collect the items of the order and deliver it to the customer. The shop saves money on warehouse maintenance and staff, and the customer receives the best guaranteed service.

The leader of the rating, same as in the past year, was the Morshinska company – the value of its brand is estimated at $533 million. Nova Poshta took the second place ($285 million), and the third place was taken by Rozetka ($244 million). Compared to 2017, the brand value of both companies increased by more than 30%.

The top 100 includes such telecom operators: Kyivstar ranked 10th ($ 155 million), Lifecell is 18th ($104.8 million), Volya is 92nd ($5.5 million). The Vodafone brand is not taken into account in the rating, and Ukrtelecom dropped out of the list this year.

The rating also includes companies that Novoye Vremya places in the e-commerce category: Citrus took 28th place ($73 million), Foxtrot – 36th place ($51 million), Allo – 38th place ($46 million), Comfy – 61st place ($17.5 million), Prom.ua – 67th place ($12.5 million). It is noteworthy that the price of the Prom.ua brand rose the most in the top 100 – by 190%.

Compilers of the rating note that the methodology for their assessment is based on the financial results of the companies that own the brands, as well as factors that may affect the brand value: the geographical coverage of sales, the technological component, the output, and the investment attractiveness of the industry.

The top ten most expensive brands are the following:

1. Morshinska – $533 million
2. Nova Poshta – $285 million
3. Rozetka – $244 million
4. PrivatBank – $237 million
5. Sandora – $231 million
6. Hortytsya – $229 million
7. Roshen – $206 million
8. Nemiroff – $196 million
9. ATB – $157 million
10. Kyivstar – $155 million

The creation of Nova Poshta in 2001 was not preceded by serious market research and traditional business procedures: its founders Vladimir Popereshnyuk and Vyacheslav Klimov had practically no entrepreneurial experience. Nevertheless, they had a desire to meet the client’s needs – to manage his/her understandable, but not yet solved “pain”.

It started with the banal transportation of goods: Vladimir’s family was engaged in the production of confectionery, and the work of the future Nova Poshta partners was to transport sweets from one city to another. At that time, the company competed not with other express deliveries (there weren’t any competitors on the Ukrainian market), but with train conductors and intercity Ikarus bus drivers.

Contrary to the obvious guesswork, the company did not try to compete with Ukrposhta. “Ukrposhta has never been a benchmark for us,” comments Klimov. “The only common thing we have is the word “poshta”. We focused on fast service and high-quality delivery. Therefore, we did not pay attention to them.”

Vyacheslav Klimov

In Ukrposhta AIN.UA was told that they really work with a wider audience. “We provide services to residents of all localities, while our competitors are concentrated in large and medium-sized cities. The cost of sending by Ukrposhta is 30-40% lower than by other postal and logistics companies. Our main competitors are concentrated on the premium segment of express delivery – the next day delivery, but not everyone needs the next day delivery at a high price,” assures Igor Smelyansky, Acting Director General of Ukrposhta. “Nowadays, the main trend is the growth of the e-commerce market. So, with an ever-growing volume, all domestic players of postal and logistics services market will have enough space.”

A little later, Popereshnyuk and Klimov became interested in the indicators of the express delivery market in the US and Europe and realized that in Ukraine this niche is absolutely free, and demand – though it is unconscious – is enormous. Initially, Nova Poshta invested $7,000 (at that time – UAH 15,000-20,000), and, according to Klimov, these were the only money raised to the company from outside (by the way, this was also the savings of the founders’ families)

First problems

Today Nova Poshta has more than 2,300 offices and 23,000 employees (for comparison, Ukrposhta has 11,500 offices and 73,000 employees). Hardly anyone would think that the first NP orders were delivered by partisan methods and often were even unprofitable. The company made a commitment to deliver in 24 hours, which sometimes led to sending a courier to another city by train or hiring trucks for bulky cargo.

Four months after the startup, the company got the first large customer – there was submitted an order for the return of 200 kg of wooden packaging from the smoked fish from the Kyiv pre-trial detention center.

A few years later, Popereshnyuk and Klimov entered the International Business Institute, where they got acquainted with the marketing director of the Mobilochka chain. For a long time the company has become one of the largest customers of Nova Poshta.

The same customer caused the first serious challenges in logistics. For example, at some point the management of Mobilochka demanded to deliver goods to any point in Ukraine before noon. At first, the task seemed impossible, but without such clients, according to Klimov, business could not develop.

Considering that the company has been increasing 30-50% annually over the last 7 years, they have withstood the challenge of Mobilochka. “According to the classics of management, a growth of over 20% for 12 months is a mega stress for the company, we have been working for a long time at the limit of infrastructure. Of course, the system can malfunction from time to time,” explains Klimov, when we ask why there are so many complaints about the service under each post on the pages of the company.

“We set a very high level of expectations. Whereas previously it was enough for a client to guarantee the delivery and the possibility of cargo tracking, now, in addition to delivery, consumers want a lot of additional services: online services for managing a parcel, delivery outside Ukraine, same day delivery, etc.,” adds Vladimir Popereshnyuk.

The company monitors not only the metrics for service quality, but also shares it in open access. “We regularly publish quality indicators on the website of the company. The latest data are as follows:

We also regularly measure the SSI (Service Satisfaction Index) and NPS (Net Promoter Score). Now these indicators are 8 out of 9 (SSI) and 63% (NPS).” NPS data was provided by UMG agency, the study was conducted on request of NP.

In the press service of the postal and logistics operator Meest Express, one of the NP competitors, we were told that practically the same indicators guide them: cargo damage – no more than 0.05%, cargo losses – about 0.01% and on-time delivery – up to 98%. The company declined to comment how many parcels were delivered by Meest Express in 2016.

Nova Poshta in figures

One of the key decisions having influenced the development of the company is considered to be the creation of the service offices network. “Back then, our colleagues on the market were ironic towards this. They believed that it was enough to open a warehouse at the entrance to the city,” remembers Popereshnyuk. “Nowadays there are about 200 offices in Kyiv. Sometimes, from the window of one office the sign of the other can be seen.” The partners explain that it was done on purpose: if offices are within easy walking distance, delivery will stop being a stress for а client.

The founders of the company tell: for the first ten years they were the main force of strategic decisions, but now the vector is shifting towards management.

“We are still ideologists, authors of many market and technological ideas. This is as it should be. The history of the world’s successful businesses proves it,” explains the state of affairs Klimov, “No matter how competent a manager is, you need someone who can generate even an absurd idea and be its driver.”

Today, many large-scale changes in the company occur without deep involvement of the founders. “The mobile application project was implemented exclusively by management, the creation of the National Terminal is entirely the idea of our directors and their teams,” lists Popereshnyuk, noting that the National Terminal is the largest investment in the history of the company.

“At the same time, we, as concerned owners, can get involved in making solutions that, at first glance, seem very tactical. For example, we participated in the selection of design jackets for drivers. It seems that this is a tactic, but this is a great decision and we want to participate in it,” boasts Klimov.

Crisis and rebranding

In 2005, Nova Posta felt the consequences of a real competition – several companies dealing with express delivery entered the market. Perhaps Mist Express was the most noticeable. They had foreign investment and Western technology.

It became more difficult to fight not only for customers, but also for own employees. Klimov admits (however, without naming specific companies): one of the newly-made competitors started offering to the employees of Nova Poshta the salaries 3-4 times higher than their current ones. The management had to invent new methods of encouragement: the drivers were offered piecework pay, which depended on the number of parcels delivered.

The financial crisis of 2008 ruined the turnover of Nova Posta by 30%. But it turned out that you can also benefit from the crisis. While the company’s competitors cut spending on development, Nova Poshta invested in marketing and hiring sales managers. For several months the company stopped earning money, but already in December 2008 it showed growth again.

The crisis was not the only time when the company had to react to damage from outside.

In 2014, due to the annexation of the Crimea and military operations in Donbass, Klimov and Popereshnyuk lost 15% of their business in Ukraine.

However, soon the losses were compensated as the company entered the market of Georgia and Moldova. At the same time, the Humanitarian Mail of Ukraine was launched. The initiative has made it possible to close the demand for the delivery of humanitarian aid to the front-line zone. The company works with more than 150 volunteer organizations. During the whole existence of the program, together with these organizations, it delivered more than 13,000 tons of humanitarian cargo free of charge. The program exists today.

At that time, they conducted a large-scale rebranding – NP acquired a new logo, packaging and other visual identity elements. We trusted the work to be done by the Kyiv branding agency Fedoriv. Andrey Fedoriv, Head of the agency, said, “In May 2014 only visible identity elements were shown at the presentation, the whole rebranding program lasted several years.”

“We started working with NP in the summer of 2013. They addressed to us to get an advertising campaign. We suggested that we postpone this task and first rebrand the company. They had a good product, but the brand did not match,” remembers Andrey Fedoriv. “The owners accepted the offer, but with one condition – they forbade changing the company’s current logo.”

The strategists of Fedoriv conducted research and proposed an idea about the delivery of the future. Klimov and Popereshnyuk liked the idea and approved it right at the meeting. The only hitch remained with the logo: it depicted a wax seal, which did not match the image of a dynamic company that never sleeps. In the period from May to October 2014, the company completely “changed”.

Fedoriv said that his agency has been working with NP so far. Now there are several projects in work, including those related to communication within the company and further development strategy.

Working with the negative

In the autumn of 2016, Nova Poshta faced a problem: the percentage of complaints about parcels delivery delays and quality of service has increased many-fold. That is around the same time the company launched a delivery service from China. “We faced incredible operational difficulties. These were different cargoes, different customers who did not expect that the delivery of Chinese parcels would be executed by Nova Poshta. In addition, Nova Poshta accustomed clients to the next day deliveries. And our audience was not ready to wait three weeks, even if it was about sending out packages from China,” comments Klimov.

“We, as the executors of the Last mile in Ukraine, could not influence the processes of transportation of goods on the territory of China, it was carried out by SF Express, our local partner,” recalls Liliya Zagrebelnaya, PR-director of Nova Poshta. She says that the problems were also related to the translation of addresses and often they had to call customers in order to clarify the details. It took a lot of time.

The number of requests, multiplied by the size of the company, provoked changes in the work of the remote customer service department. Today responses are received through all channels: in offices, through the site, the contact center, comments or messages in social networks. “All requests are recorded in CRM. The system allows recording the history of communication with each client. Therefore, when we receive calls, an operator already looks through previous conversations. Moreover, since recently, he/she deals with the client’s issue on his/her own – finds out the circumstances of the address, contacts the right people in the company, keeps in touch with the client,” said Liliya Zagrebelnaya, PR-director.

Sometimes, curious incidents take place in call centers, in the company they become its own folklore. One of these stories occurred last year in December. The client wanted to know the status of her package – her daughter’s New Year gift. The girl was curious who her mother was talking to on the phone, and she answered that she was talking to the Snow Maiden about the gift from Grandfather Frost. The daughter snatched the phone from her mother and the contact center operator had to play the role of the Snow Maiden and sing the song.

Innovations

In 2016, the company was on the 1,428 place in the ranking of the top-5000 fastest growing European companies compiled by Inc. magazine.

“Today, Nova Poshta Company is pulling up several related industries, for example, we work with our other client – OLX,” told AIN.UA. Andrei Fedoriv, the marketing expert. “A huge number of e-commerce companies, small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine also develop because we have good logistics in our country. This is especially noticeable in comparison with projects in other countries, for example, in Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan.”

Ivan Portnoy, Head of the marketplace Prom.ua, also agrees with him. His company unites 720,000 internet entrepreneurs selling 89 million goods and services. 74% of marketplace transactions are made by commercial delivery services, although it is impossible to calculate how many of them were made by Nova Posta.

“For example, in Belarus online stores have to build their own logistics, because in this country there are almost no commercial delivery services and courier services cannot accept payment for purchases instead of store employees. This leads to an increase in the cost of Internet shopping for the end user and hinders the development of the e-commerce market as a whole,” comments Ivan Portnoy, Head of the marketplace Prom.ua. “It is not profitable for small and medium-sized businesses in Ukraine to create their own delivery services and have staff couriers. It’s much more profitable to use logistics services.”

In such conditions, the aspiration of Nova Poshta to introduce innovations is understandable. In this regard, they have role models. For example, Amazon, one of the most prominent players in express delivery, is nowadays called the most innovative company in the world thanks to the introduction of robots in logistics, use of drones, automation of product labeling, online services, etc.

“We still do not shoot our own series, like Amazon Studios does, but we are increasingly looking for solutions to our problems in technology. In early 2018, in area of the Circular road in Kyiv the National Terminal will be launched. The total area of the first stage alone is 15,000 square meters, and, according to preliminary estimations, this will allow processing 600 trucks and sorting over 400,000 barcodes of goods per day,” Popereshnyuk introduces the idea.

After a full launch, the terminal will sort cargo at a speed of 4 m/s, which is the equivalent of 14.4 km/h. For comparison: conventional sorting belt operates at a speed of 0.7 m/s or 2.52 km/h. Later, it is planned to open such sorting centers in another seven Ukrainian cities.

“At the National Terminal “Nova Poshta” there is a scanner, which scans a parcel on six sides. Wherever a barcode is glued, it will be read. If this were done manually, the operation would be 10 times slower. It can be recalculated in minutes or money,” Klimov comments, telling that two divisions are responsible for innovations in Nova Poshta. These are the Department of product development and management and the Department of research & development, in total they employ more than 25 people.

The company did not avoid the administrative digital trends like agile (when the development of new processes is split into small phases) and customer journey (when the full customer journey that is being made when making a purchase or using the service is formed) in the development of new services and products. This was the start of the NP Shopping service, which allows you to order products in online stores in the US and Europe. And if in January of that year, at the launch stage, 5,000 orders were processed, in September their number was already 25,000. In 2016 the company delivered more than 110 million packages, about a quarter of this volume is the deliveries for the customers of the e-commerce segment. Ukrposhta sent 18.5 million parcels the same year.

So far, Nova Poshta cannot boast of total robotization (like Amazon), but the first achievements are already done: for example, National Aviation University has developed for Nova Poshta an unmanned vehicle capable of carrying loads of up to 4 kg. The development of an unmanned vehicle for the large loads transportation (from 500 kg to 1 ton) is in the planning stage.

Innovations also encompass sorting of packages. The system Put to Light operates for international parcels. Earlier the sorter needed to read the marking and only then send cargo further along the chain. Now you just need to scan the parcel, then the system Put to Light turn on signals for the sorters, these signals facilitate the process and eliminate errors in the coordination of the cargos.

If we compare the firsthalf of 2017 with the first half of 2016, the number of operations with goods that NP Logistics carried out has increased by 2.6 times. However, the company notes a market deficiency of space. Today, about 300,000 square meters are used for fulfillment in Ukraine, with the exception of warehouses for food offline retail. The company believes this rate to be insufficient, given the annual e-commerce growth rate of 30-50%. “The vacancy of warehouse space in Ukraine now stands about 10%, while there are very few high-quality A class facilities (these are exactly what are needed for fulfillment),” concluded Lisovets.

Recently, Nova Poshta has entered into a cooperation agreement with DPD Group, the second-largest network for the parcels delivery in Europe. This means that in the coming year more than 2,300 departments of Nova Poshta will be integrated with the DPD network (which is more than 28,000 points across Europe).

Figuratively speaking, parents will be able to send a gift to their daughter from the Nova Poshta department No. 1 in Borispol, and she will receive a parcel at the DPD department No. 375 in Brussels.

Klimov and Popereshnyuk are sure that there are no trends that would not be available to Ukraine. The three main directions for the development of express deliveries in the company are: self-service, 24/7 service and digitalization.

Regarding the first one, the company has already started the development of the packstations network. Self-service zones on the basis of packstations have already been accommodated in 15 offices in Kyiv. The company plans to develop their own network in shopping malls, business centers and supermarkets.

One of the closest competitors of Nova Poshta Company – postal and logistics operator Meest Express – is also actively developing the direction of self-service. In October 2017, the Company launched an order delivery program from Ukrainian online stores – Meest Tochka. The service implies that any store, cafe, hairdressing salon or gas station, which joined the program, can serve as an issue point.

“The main task is to minimize human participation in the process. All actions are performed via the recipient’s smartphone. Meest Tochka operators do not even take part in sending in some cases,” was told AIN.UA in the press service of Meest Express.

Now, 114 participants have joined the project, 51 “points” in a dozen cities of Ukraine have been fully launched. At the first stage, Meest Express plans to attract 1,500 participants across the country.

“In Ukrposhta the advantages of commercial services are considered as the possibility of being more flexible, offering significant discounts and working with foreign private postal operators. Ukrposhta, as a state-owned company, does not have such opportunities yet,” Smelyanskiy summed up.

“Customers want the delivery to be mobile and flexible, so communication will become more digital and more contactless. You can manage the package in the mobile application Nova Poshta and receive it via packstation at any convenient time without the help of operators. In the coming years, these services will become more popular than the traditional visit to the office,” Vyacheslav Klimov says.

Since November 2017, you can change the data of recipient, sender and payer through the application. In addition, they added a possibility of registration for business customers (private entrepreneurs, online stores). Previously this option was available only for individuals.

Photos in the article by: Alexander Kozachenko

The ranking mostly consists of raw materials businessmen who control enterprises of production of products with low added value. The first place belongs to the owner of SCM (which includes Ukrtelecom) Rinat Akhmetov, who, thanks to growing demand for metals, increased his wealth by 76% up to $12.2 billion. In absolute figures, Akhmetov became richer by $5.3 billion.

Speaking about sphere of technology and e-commerce, only Vladislav Chechetkin, the founder of “Rozetka”, entered the top 100. He has taken the 29th place in the ranking. His estate was estimated at $165 million by “Novoe Vremya”. It is noteworthy that in just a year it grew by 124%.

In April, a similar rating was released according to the Focus magazine, in which Chechetkin’s estate was estimated at $87 million.

The creators of the company “Nova Poshta” – the leader among private delivery operators – Vyacheslav Klimov and Vladimir Popereshnyuk also appear in the rating. The estate of each of them was estimated at $102 million (in April “Focus” estimated their estates at $121 million each). The growth dynamics could not be measured, because businessmen were ranked for the first time and immediately acquired 55th and 56th places.

The President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko ranks as 6th. Vasily Khmelnitsky, chief investor of UNIT.City, ranks as 36th in the rating ($125 million), Comfy owner Stanislav Ronnis ($94 million) is 62nd, Vladimir Tsoi ($68 million) and Sergey Bashlakov ($51 million), owners of IT-distributor MTI, are 79th and 91st, respectively.

The former owner of UMH, Boris Lozhkin, is at the end of the ranking with estate of $48 million. According to the creators of the research, his estate has decreased by 20% over the past year (“Focus” has estimated it at $139 million).

As it is noted by “Novoe Vremya”, all of the people from this ranking can be confident in tomorrow’s day since the world economy is growing, consuming more raw materials and finished products and goods made in Ukraine every year. Ukraine’s GDP growth, according to the NBU forecasts, will increase by 3,4% by the end of the year, and by 2019 will add another 2,4%, and also will naturally affect the richest people.

Delivery service “Nova Poshta” turned out to be the most popular – 97% of the respondents use it, which is approximately three times more compared to the result of the nearest competitor – “Ukrposhta” (33%). The least popular were Zruchna (3%) and Delfast (0,8%). 40% of respondents also use their own couriers for goods delivery.

The popularity of delivery services among online stores

•         Nova Poshta – 97 %
•         Own couriers – 40%
•         Ukrposhta – 33%
•         InTime – 24 %
•         Delivery – 18 %
•         Meest Express – 8 %
•         Autolux – 4%
•         Zruchna – 3%
•         Delfast – 0,8 %

“Nova Poshta” (64%) also became the leader in the percentage of goods sent by Ukrainian shipping companies to delivery services. “Ukrposhta” took second place with 8% results. “Autolux” (0,9%) and Delfast (0,1%) are at the end of the rating.

Percentage of orders by online stores delivered by a certain service

•         Nova Poshta – 64 %
•         Own couriers – 13%
•         Ukrposhta – 8%
•         InTime – 6 %
•         Delivery – 3 %
•         Meest Express – 1 %
•         Zruchna – 1%
•         Autolux – 0,9 %
•         Delfast – 0,1 %

Also, the authors of the study compared the public information on each of the companies and concluded that the largest networks of branches are “Ukrposhta” (12800) and “Nova Poshta” (2300 + 1400 postal operators). Dalfast only has six divisions, Zrushna has three of them.

Otherwise, the way these services operate they don’t need divisions – Delfast and Zruchna do address deliveries and their speed is much higher than other services (within one day). “Ukrposhta” takes the longest, their delivery is 4-6 days, even though it has an express delivery (1-2 days).

It is more economically favorable to deliver small cargos with “Delivery” and “Autolux”, and Zruchna and “Ukrposhta” are better for large ones. “Nova Poshta” keeps average prices in different delivery categories. It is also worth to note that the national service is relatively inexpensive for small and medium-sized shipments.