PostNord has gained new logistics contracts amid a continuing parcels boom as Swedes shop online at Black Friday levels and is also planning an end-of-year peak season surcharge to cope with higher operational costs.
The Nordic postal group has signed three new commercial contracts in the last few weeks.
Over the last few years, the group’s transport and logistics unit PostNord TPL and the Nestlé Group worked closely with groceries. Now the collaboration is further expanded by Nestlé Purina moving into PostNord TPL's new warehouse at Landvetter in Gothenburg.
The agreement includes services in transport, storage and picking. Nestlé Purina will be given an area of nearly 10,000 sqm and both companies expect to employ about 25 people. In addition, Nestlé Purina will use the Control Tower, as well as PostNord TPL's IT support for controlling and monitoring the logistics flow.
Additionally, PostNord TPL and online bicycle and outdoor retailer Internetstores are extending their logistics cooperation in Helsingborg. Since 2015, PostNord has handled TPL logistics for Internetstores’ subsidiary Addnature. The new agreement covers delivery, storage, customer order picking and distribution in the Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish e-commerce markets.
Håkan Lindberg, COO, PostNord TPL, pointed out: “The assignment will occupy approximately 3,000 sqm at the new warehouse at Väla in Helsingborg and will initially employ about 10-15 people.”
Moreover, Scandinavian home furnishing online shop Nordic Nest has deepened its partnership with PostNord. In recent years, the deliverer distributed parts of Nordic Nest’s deliveries in Sweden. The new agreement, which came into force in April, now also covers deliveries in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway.
Several PostNord services will be used as part of the expanded collaboration, which includes delivery to agents, the recipient’s mailbox and home delivery. PostNord’s dense presence in the Nordic region and the complete service offering made Nordic Nest choose to extend the collaboration.
High volumes
Meanwhile, PostNord’s Swedish parcel volumes are once again at Black Friday levels. On June 9th, the company handled 760,000 parcels (including 630,000 B2C deliveries), which is in line with the days around Black Friday. Normally the company handles about 550,000 packages on a normal day but the daily level has been close to 650,000 packages in recent weeks.
Peter Hesslin, Head of e-commerce and logistics at PostNord Sweden, commented: “There have generally been higher volumes in recent months, but when we reach such levels we are approaching volumes that we normally only have during the peak period at the end of the year.”
In April, the E-barometer, PostNord’s monthly survey of e-commerce in Sweden, recorded that 78% of consumers stated that they had e-shopped in April, which is the highest figure it has ever measured.
Carl-Fredrik Teder, retail analyst at PostNord, commented: “This is undoubtedly an effect of the current corona crisis. It will be particularly interesting to follow how much of the increase stays consistent when life eventually starts to return to more normal conditions.”
Peak season surcharge
Lastly, during the period from November 23, 2020 to January 15, 2021, PostNord will charge a capacity surcharge of SEK 4 (€0.38) per package for certain services. As in previous years, the capacity increase is designed to compensate for the increased costs incurred during this period.
The company expects large volumes during that time, partly due to many returns. Several of the capacity-enhancing measures that need to be taken will be extra expensive during the high season.
The increase applies to PostNord’s contract customers who ship with the services PostNord MyPack Collect, PostNord MyPack Home, PostNord Return Drop Off and PostNord Return Pickup. All packages sent with these services, regardless of destination, will be charged the capacity supplement of SEK 4 per package.
In order to meet the challenge with large volumes for a short period of time and to minimize the impact for customers and end consumers, PostNord will hire extra transport capacity in the form of trucks and drivers, increase opening hours at drop-off points, hire extra staff, open temporary delivery points and deliver home to the recipients on weekends.
