Postal operators in Europe, including Austrian Post, Correos and Lithuanian Post, are introducing
and expanding innovative services to develop their parcel delivery businesses, according to senior
executives.
Austrian Post sees good potential for the e-grocery market which currently makes up only a
very small part of the country’s overall e-commerce sector, Peter Umundum, management board member
and responsible for the parcels division, told last week’s European Post and Parcel Services
conference in Vienna.
The recent ‘food4all@home’ project in Upper Austria to test home delivery of online food
orders, using a sealed cool box, had proved successful and the company is now looking to expand the
service, he said. The company plans to introduce nationwide food delivery this year and is
reviewing ways to deliver frozen goods as well, he disclosed.
In addition, a same-day ‘food and non-food’ service could be offered by setting up an extra
logistics operation for collection from retailers by 14.00, direct transportation during the
afternoon and delivery in two timeslots from 17.00 onwards (17.00 – 19.30 and 18.30 – 21.00). “This
same-day delivery is planned for urban areas in Austria,” Umundum said.
Looking further ahead, he added: “If it works in Austria, then we could bring it to other
countries”. Austrian Post owns several parcel companies in South-East Europe which are expanding
their original B2B businesses into the B2C market, as well as the German B2B firm trans-o-flex.
Another idea might be to launch a general e-commerce marketplace, Umundum said in response
to questions. “A marketplace for Austria from Austrian Post could be an interesting idea,” he
commented.
Meanwhile, Spanish postal operator Correos is satisfied with last year’s launch of ‘HomePaq’
residential parcel boxes and the new e-commerce service Comandia as part of its e-commerce
strategy, sales and marketing director David Muntañola told delegates.
HomePaq boxes are located in apartment blocks and are shared by neighbours. Comandia is a
complete e-commerce service targeted at SMEs, enabling them to quickly create a simple online shop,
to manage stock and orders as well as customer information and includes payments systems. It also
incorporates the Correos logistics system.
“We are trying to help Spanish SMEs go online and we’ve created a very easy way to create an
online shop. We’re expecting it to work well in the Spanish market,” Muntañola said. About 3,000
firms are already using the system, which was launched last autumn.
A very different approach is being taken by Lithuania Post which wants to position itself as
‘the gateway to Europe’ for Chinese import parcels by taking advantage of the country’s
geographical location between Western, Northern and Eastern Europe as well as Russia and CIS
states.
Last June the postal operator signed an agreement with Beijing-based logistics company CLEVY
to deliver Chinese goods to Europe, covering EU member states, Russia, Belarus, and other
countries. Volumes quickly soared, and in the July – September 2014 quarter about half of the
company’s 12 million import parcels came from China. The bulk of these were forwarded to EU
countries, Russia and other states.
“We have a unique position. We are in the centre of Europe and that’s an advantage for us,”
said sales director Arunas Venckavicius. “We can be a transit partner for China to Europe. We’re
small but very flexible and we have high ambitions,” he declared.
In February Lithuania Post opened a new logistics hub in Kaunas to help deal with this
volume growth.
The various product innovations presented at the conference were praised by Chinese
e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. “Everyone is experimenting and that’s good. The innovations I have
heard here are the right way to go,” said Ken Ardali, the group’s international business
development director for EMEA.
