Postal operators in Norway and Germany are adding significant parcel capacity and making operational adjustments to handle an expected flood of packages and gift cards in the weeks leading up to Christmas.
Posten Bring, the state-owned postal services and logistics provider in Norway, has installed hundreds more parcel lockers to offer more flexible delivery options and recently opened its largest parcel distribution center.
Norway Post has established new locations and upgraded the size of 300 existing parcel lockers this year in anticipation of record parcel volumes during the holiday shipping season, the company said in a news release on Friday. Posten Bring operates two brands: Posten for the private market within Norway and Bring for the business market and cross-border e-commerce shipments.
The number of parcels delivered to parcel lockers in Norway in August broke last year’s Christmas record, indicating that demand for parcel boxes will be even greater this Christmas season, Norway Post said. From January to September, the number of parcels delivered to so-called Pakkeboks increased by around 50% compared to the same period last year.
Posten Bring encourages consumers to pick up packages as quickly as possible during the busy season because it frees up units for replenishment when millions of packages are due to arrive in a short time. At popular locations, Posten will replenish with new packages several times a day. More than nine out of 10 packages are collected within four days. On average, it takes about 26.5 hours for packages to be collected.
Earlier this month, Posten Bring opened its largest parcel terminal, capable of handling more than 500,000 packages per day.
The automated sort facility is located in Moss, five minutes from a major highway, and will mainly handle import volumes from Sweden and Denmark, in addition to local packages from Østfold. During heavy volume peaks, the terminal will also relieve Posten Bring’s logistics center in Oslo, the country’s main terminal for parcel sorting.
The postal carrier said the facility has plenty of room to accommodate future growth.
Deutsche Post
In Germany, DHL’s Post & Parcel division, doing business as Deutsche Post, said Friday it will increase capacity for processing and delivering letters and parcels, hire additional temporary staff and continue to expand its network of parcel stations. Planning for the Christmas season has been going on for months.
The postal operator plans to add more than 500 more parcel lockers nationwide by the end of the year. It will also hire more than 10,000 temporary workers this year to support its more-than 150,000 employees making deliveries and working in mail and parcel centers. Post & Parcel Germany has also created additional capacity at its sorting facilities to handle the increasing volume of mail, is planning about 9,500 separate delivery routes for the busiest weeks and will again deploy about 11,000 extra vehicles to ensure it can reliably sort, transport and deliver millions of letters and parcels during the holiday rush, it said in a news release.
“Flexibility is very important to many customers today. That’s why parcel lockers have become an integral part of everyday parcel delivery. They enable the sending and receiving of parcels regardless of opening hours and at the same time help us to efficiently manage increasing parcel volumes. This is a great advantage, especially in the run-up to Christmas,” said Nikola Hagleitner, a Post & Parcel Germany board member.
For sending and receiving parcels, customers across Germany now have access to about 19,500 DHL Packstations (automated, self-service locker systems that allow users to send, receive and drop-off parcels around the clock), Poststations (digital Deutsche Post retail outlets where users can take care of postal business), and partner-operated DeinFach automated parcel lockers.
The U.S. Postal Service recently outlined the ways it has prepared for the upcoming peak season and also said it was hiring 10,000 temporary workers.
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Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.
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