French consumers can now collect online orders of large and heavy goods from dedicated Pickup points under a new service from La Poste.
Online sales of bulky products (DIY, furniture, household appliances, sofas, bedding, etc.) are rising rapidly in France but delivery remains difficult for many retailers.
In response, Pickup, La Poste’s network of parcel collection points, has launched a new service for heavy (over 30kg) and bulky (over 1m wide) parcels under the name ‘Relais maxi’.
These special collection points are located in the branch offices of VIR, a small French company specialising in home delivery of heavy and/or bulky products with 20 depots across France. (VIR has so far delivered more than 2 million bulky shipments this year for clients including Ikea, Ubaldi.com, Vente-unique.com, Amazon, Veepee, Leroy Merlin and Made.com.)
“For 20 years, we have been designing and operating innovative and flexible solutions to adapt to the needs of our B2B and B2C customers,” said Florian Bonnasse, Sales and Marketing Director of Pickup. “With Relais maxi, Pickup is expanding its service portfolio with the aim to ensure the most qualitative customer experience possible."
Collection points close to customers
During a pilot phase, 17 Relais maxi have been installed at VIR branches in various French cities, including Toulouse, Bordeaux, Rennes, Nancy, Lille, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand and Strasbourg. More could follow at a later stage.
By choosing to locate the Relais maxi collection points in city centres but also close to residential areas, consumers will be able to travel comfortably to their nearest collection point, including by car, the parcel operator noted.
Delivery to Relais maxi offers the same customer advantages as to one of the 13,000 Pickup points for small parcels, including time savings and lower costs, it explained.
When making a purchase on an e-commerce site that offers delivery to a Relais maxi terminal, customers just need to choose the collection point which is most convenient for them. Like with standard parcels delivered to a Pickup parcel collection point, shoppers receive regular notifications, e-mails and SMS throughout the entire shipping process. An additional notification is sent a few days before the shipment is delivered to the Relais maxi.
Mondial Relay grows to 10,000 “Point Relais” outlets
Meanwhile, B2C delivery specialist Mondial Relay has announced that it now operates over 10,000 “Point Relais” parcel points in France. This means 1,000 new locations since September when the company counted 9,000 terminals. Apart from France, Mondial Relay operates 1,200 parcel terminals in Belgium, 500 in the Netherlands and 2,900 in Spain.
