Swiss Post set a new parcel volume record in 2018 with a total of 138 million shipments and is investing a total of 220 CHF million (€194.4 million) in its parcel sorting operations by 2020.
The new record, which corresponds to a 25% increase compared to 2013, is due to an increasing number of online purchases, especially in the pre-Christmas period, and sales promotions such as Cyber Monday or Black Friday, with nearly six million parcels being handled during the Black Friday week alone. On peak days, Swiss Post worked extra shifts, hired more staff and additional vehicles.
Imported small packages weighing up to 2kg, which are often packed in softly padded envelopes and are considered letters, increased strongly by 14% to 33 million last year, compared to 2017. Of these packages, 23 million were shipped from Asia. In total, Swiss Post delivered almost 106,000 small consignments ordered abroad to its customers every day.
Regular parcels also showed solid growth of 6.7% in 2018, compared to the previous year.
The increasing volumes boosted by the booming online trade create new logistics challenges for Swiss Post. To cope with the further increase in parcels and imported small consignments, the postal operator is investing CHF 70 million (€61.8 million) in a state-of-the-art sorting machine at the Zurich-Mülligen sorting centre which will become operational in spring 2020.
Swiss Post had already invested CHF 60 million in its three large parcel centres in Daillens near Lausanne, Härkingen in the north-west of the country, and Frauenfeld in northern Switzerland between 2014 and 2016. The sorting capacities at the facilities have thus been increased by 25% to cope with the growing parcel volumes.
By 2020, Swiss Post also plans to open regional parcel centres in Cadenazzo, in the Canton of Ticino, the southernmost canton of Switzerland, Vétroz in the south-west of the country, and Untervaz, located in Graubünden – the largest and easternmost canton of Switzerland, which has borders with Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. Swiss Post plans to invest a further CHF 150 million (€132,5 million) in these facilities.
Looking ahead, Swiss Post expects the parcel volume growth to continue and the imported small package volumes to increase further. The number of small consignments imported from Asia is expected to rise up to 38 million by 2020. “This development will help Swiss Post to partially compensate for the decline in letter volumes and to make better use of sorting and delivery capacities,” the company added.
