Imperial Express, or ImpEx, is a galaxy-wide shipping firm. They provide a delivery service for information and items that can't go by the HoloNet information network, and which don't justify hiring a private courier or an entire ship for the job.
The distribution network established by ImpEx is impressive. They've got offices on almost all inhabited worlds, and always seem to be expanding. They have scheduled runs between major planets, and will ship between less-major planets as demand requires.
ImpEx is a relatively cheap way to get a package from one place to another, typically costing 20 credits per kilo inside the Core, and 30 credits/kg outside the Core worlds. A package's ability to withstand hard vacuum and radiation lowers the cost considerably, and surcharges are required to get a heated shipping compartment, specific gravity requirements other than freefall, faster shipping times, etc.
ImpEx deliverybeings are not as ubiquitous as say, UPS in our world. There's less overall demand for a shipping service in the Starwars universe, since the only things that need to be physically moved from place to place are objects and usually not information. In a large city, you might expect to see an ImpEx hovertruck as often as once or twice in a day, and usually only once every two or three days.
ImpEx mostly ships their freight via third-party carriers. Sometimes those third parties are so closely allied with ImpEx as to be one and the same, but they're still separate businesses, working under a contract.
In the recent past, ImpEx has been involved in a number of highly public corruption scandals, in which high-level officials were arrested for both embezzling huge sums of credits, and operating a sub-business of tariffs on shipped packages, in contravention of Empire law (which states that only the Empire and officially designated sub-organizations can impose tariffs).
Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me.