Dunedin is to lose a Post Shop, one of seven being closed nationally, the company has announced this morning.
Along with the Dunedin Metro Post Shop, four in Auckland and two in Wellington will close. Seven other Post Shops will be rebranded as PostCentres.
The changes are expected to affect 90 staff, although the number of redundancies remains unclear.
The stores are: Dunedin Metro, Triton Plaza (North Shore), Nth Shore Mail Centre, Symonds Street (Auckland), Greenmount (Auckland), The Terrace (Wellington), 43 Manners St (Wellington).
"Similarly, it is proposed seven stores will change to PostCentres, offering full postal and courier services," the company said.
Those stores are: Grey Lynn (Auckland), Parnell (Auckland), Avondale (Auckland), Fitzroy (New Plymouth), Manawatu Mail Centre (Palmerston North), Carterton, Miramar.
The first of the store changes would begin to be implemented from late next month, the company said.
The company had signalled it would be making changes to its store network, and today said the closures were being made to ensure it could continue to provide a commercially viable network of postal and banking services.
Customer behaviour had changed dramatically in the past five years, with more people paying bills and banking online, NZ Post said.
Factors such as ongoing migration to malls and large shopping complexes, along with people shopping near their workplaces rather than their homes were strong influences on where NZ Post located stores.
The onset of convenient technology and changing shopping habits meant the current PostShop Kiwibank store network did not reflect changes in customer behaviour, NZ Post said.
The company was investing in technology such as self-service kiosks which would provide access to services in more places and with greater convenience.
After the proposed changes NZ Post would have 910 postal outlets, of which 280 would be PostShop Kiwibank stores.
New Zealand Post chairman Michael Cullen told Parliament's commerce committee in March that difficult trading conditions and a flat economy continued to negatively affect business.
