Stamp of success as post offices sell daily necessities

I've just been to the post office to buy a kilogram of potatoes and 500 grams of onions.

No, you didn't misread that, and I am not getting confused as to which shops I have visited. In Beijing, that's exactly what you can do thanks to an ingenious concept developed by China Post and implemented by the postal authorities in the Chinese capital.

Due to rapid technological advances in recent decades, many of the traditional functions of post offices are quickly becoming a thing of the past.

But rather than closing down post offices across the city, and losing a vital social resource, the idea to create the Youzheng Huimin chain of retail outlets came about. The Chinese name literally means "the postal service benefits the people", and it's that ethos of serving the people, which is so deeply entrenched in China's socialist society, which meant that, when the old way of doing things was no longer practical, a new solution had to be found which would not put the public or the workforce at a disadvantage.

The creation of the Youzheng Huimin chain was also thanks in part to the overall requirements of the Beijing municipal government to help make life easier and more convenient for the city's residents.

It's a common-sense move which keeps post offices open, so local people can continue using its services to send letters and parcels and subscribe to newspapers and magazines, but also provides somewhere to get high-quality fruit, vegetables and other daily necessities.

And in a city where retail space is at a premium, it is a smart move by Beijing's postal authorities to make use of every square inch it has at its disposal.

This is an innovative way of handling a problem presented by social development, and it's also a solution which places the people first and foremost.

I find this all the more incredible and intriguing when I compare it with the situation in my home country of the United Kingdom, where the postal service has been privatized and operates on the principles of the "free market "economy, putting profit before people.

In the UK, most people would think that the concept of the postal service benefiting or serving the people is nothing more than mere satire.

Post offices, which were once a regular feature of virtually every town in the UK, have been closed across large parts of Britain in recent decades due to their "unprofitability", with many people, such as the elderly and those unable to afford their own cars to reach those still open in large towns and cities, placed at a great disadvantage.

Now it's often the case in Britain to find small postal counters, with a very minimal service, operating in large retail outlets such as supermarkets. However, they are no replacement for the comprehensive range of services which proper post offices used to provide.

Contrast this with the situation in China, where the opposite has happened: Retail outlets have opened in post offices, people can still access all the regular postal services, and nobody loses out. In fact, it's a win-win for the public and the workforce.