Parcel carriers offer more digital and sustainable deliveries

Leading parcel companies are planning to offer more digital services and sustainable deliveries for consumers while retailers are broadening their fulfilment services for other companies, according to senior managers at Parcel + Post Expo in Frankfurt last week.

Describing the parcel industry’s business model as “stuck between products and prices”, Andreas Thams, chief sales officer for DPD Germany, stressed at a conference session that the company wanted to “make a difference” for business and private customers with added-valued solutions that would improve the customer experience.

Under its strategic roadmap, DPD would focus on three major areas: quality, innovations and network, the recently appointed sales chief told conference delegates.

DPD ‘green deliveries’ and parcel lockers

A new digital service for customers in the DPD App will be the introduction of a so-called ‘Green Badge’ and ‘Green Predict Mails’ to show the CO2 footprint of a parcel delivery, he said.

On the ground, DPD will expand its PUDO network from the current 7,500 locations “by investing in lockers” as well as parcel shops. “We will have more than 10,000 pick-up points in Germany by 2023,” Thams declared.

The parcel company is also building up additional fulfilment services for SMEs but had decided not to offer same-day deliveries following tests, he added.

DHL app redesign

In the same conference session, Kai Schmude, VP online touchpoints consumers for Deutsche Post DHL, explained how the group had redesigned the DHL Germany app to focus on customers’ core needs rather than the company’s own product offering.

For example, the company has introduced a new ‘mobile stamp’ product and will soon launch a new option enabling customers to select the new rail-based sustainable parcel delivery option on a “forced decision” basis, he said.

Rewe fulfilment

Germany’s biggest food retailer, the Rewe supermarket group, is using digital technology to develop its online food delivery service, which currently only accounts for 5% of purchases, Robert Zores, Rewe Digital`s technology chief, told the Parcel + Post Expo conference.

This is partly in response to a shortage of workers, with 50,000 empty positions in its stores and a further 10,000 missing drivers, he explained. For example, Rewe has introduced online purchase collection points at 1,500 stores across Germany and has invested in its start-up delivery partner Flink.

In addition, the group has opened up its ‘Fulfilment Tools’ technology to other retailers, such as in the fashion industry, under a cross-sector collaboration approach, Zores noted.

bpost Ecozones

Meanwhile, in a separate conference session on urban logistics, advisor Johan Peeters explained how bpost had set up a city-wide sustainable Out of Home (OOH) delivery network in the city of Mechelen to reduce emissions.

This included placing 57 battery-powered Swipbox Infinity parcel lockers at convenient locations where consumers had to walk at most 600 – 800 metres to pick up their parcels.

The project has proven a great success, according to the former bpost manager, with 85% of Mechelen residents collecting their parcels on foot or by bike, thus reducing their own emissions by 86%. For its part, bpost delivers parcels to the lockers by bike, thus avoiding 164 km of driving each day and reducing last-mile delivery emissions by 97%.