GO! Express & Logistics helped Germans to celebrate New Year’s Eve in traditional style by shipping more than 400 tonnes of firecrackers and fireworks to retailers and private customers, and will also raise prices in February to cope with higher costs.
The figure of 400 tonnes represents a 17% volume increase compared to 2017, according to the express and courier service provider.
GO! emphasised that it has to meet strict laws applying to fireworks, which are classified as dangerous goods, and also ensure time-critical delivery between Christmas and New Year. Fireworks can only be sold publicly on the last three working days of the year.
Sorting staff and couriers who had completed special ADR dangerous goods training processed over 400 tonnes of fireworks in special separate shifts within one day, greatly surpassing the volumes on even the busiest normal days.
The shipments were fed into the GO! network at the newly expanded hub in Niederaula in central Germany, and then distributed to regional stations for delivery.
“GO! starts planning extensively for the firework period at the very start of the year,” explained Ulrich Nolte, Managing Director of GO! Express & Logistics (Deutschland) GmbH. “With our excellent network-wide delivery rate of 99.2% and outstanding process planning in advance, we were able to master the challenge this year, too.”
Meanwhile, GO! has announced it will raise its prices by an average of 5.5% from 1 February 2019, following on from increases by other major carriers in Germany.
The increase is designed to cope with rising personnel costs against the background of a shortage of skilled workers. This includes measures to acquire and retain employees as well as for training and development. The shortage of drivers in particular has become more acute in the industry in recent years and poses a further challenge for the medium-sized company.
In parallel, GO! is continuing to invest in its network to meet growing customer demands. Last September it opened an €11 million extension to the Niederaula hub that doubled capacity.
In addition, regional centres, including Cologne, Frankfurt, Gera and Heilbronn, have been expanded, while local stations such as those in Cologne / Bonn, Würzburg and Trier, have been extended. Moreover, GO! is modernising its vehicle fleet and investing in IT systems.
“With the investments we are making in personnel and infrastructure, we are ensuring our high quality standards as well as the flexibility and availability of our services,” Nolte explained. “The higher costs involved in this make it necessary to adjust our pricing structure.”
GO! Express & Logistics, which describes itself as Germany’s largest independent express and courier service provide, delivers more than 6.5 million shipments per year through a network of over 100 stations in Germany and neighbouring countries, and generates turnover of over €300 million.
