GLS Netherlands has optimised its delivery service by offering customers the opportunity to pick uptheir shipments in one of its 200 parcel shops.
Online shopping is continuously increasing with 43% of the Dutch population buying over theinternet last year. However, customers ordering online are often not at home when the driver isabout to hand over the parcel. Therefore, the new service provides an alternative solution ofreceiving a parcel via GLS parcel shops.
Along with the new pick-up option, GLS Netherlands provides three alternative solutions.First, the shipment can be delivered again to the same address. Secondly, the parcel is deliveredto a neighbouring address. Thirdly, it can be collected from the GLS depot.
Milo Kars, general manager at GLS Netherlands, commented on the new solution: “Our aim was todevelop the most flexible and the easiest solution possible for private customers. Many customerswork, are not able to get the parcel delivered to their workplace or are simply not at home forother reasons. Through the new pick-up option in the parcel shops, the recipient can choose whereand when to receive the parcel: during the lunch break close to their workplace, after work on theway home or while shopping during the weekend. The choice of the parcel shop is absolutely free.”
The recipient can inform GLS of the desired option by phone or via the GLS website. Therequired parcel number and the contact details are written for the customer on the informationnote. GLS driver leaves this note in case he can’t hand it over personally neither to the recipientnor to the neighbour.
Before introducing the new delivery concept nationwide, GLS Netherlands tested it in a pilotproject in the province of Utrecht. As a result, almost 30% of the parcel recipients have used theparcel shops as an alternative delivery address. “We also expect great interest countrywide,” Karsadded.
Initially, GLS parcel shops were intended for private and business customers with sporadicparcel volumes to ship their parcels in a safe, fast and cheap way. The nationwide network providesexcellent accessibility. The parcel shops can be found in retail shops as well as electronicsstores, bicycle shops, building centres and kiosks with long or integrated working hours.
