DHL Express is aiming for much greater customer usage of its electronic tools following awide-ranging upgrading of e-commerce services, a senior manager said.
The express operator has invested significantly in upgrading its electronic solutions forcustomers and now offers “a comprehensive set” of tools in more than 130 countries worldwide,Patrick Jairam, vice president for global e-commerce, told a media briefing in Milton Keynes, UK,yesterday.
DHL Express is mostly focusing on B2B customers with its e-commerce solutions at present, Jairamsaid. The company is looking into B2C offerings but these “are not cost-effective at present”. TheDHL Express e-commerce solutions allow customers to trade in their own language and apply nationaland local laws and regulations, including customs procedures, he stressed.
Asked by CEP-Research about customer usage levels of electronic tools, he responded: “Ourobjective is to get to 75% – 80% across the globe.” At present, usage lies in the mid-50s in Asia,the Americas and developing countries for diverse reasons. In Europe, customer usage of e-commercesolutions is already at 78% and DHL aims to increase this to the 80% – 90% level, he added.
Presenting the different solutions, Jairam said that DHL Easy Ship, a desktop-based ‘totalshipment management system’ enabling shipping, pricing, tracking, reporting and other functions, istargeted mostly at high-volume shippers with at least 1,000 shipments a day. In contrast, theinternet-based Web Shipping solution targets SMEs and occasional customers with low or mediumvolumes.
The recently-launched Import Express Online service, enabling importers to ship goods “fromanywhere to anywhere”, is being rolled out worldwide with completion due by the end of April, hesaid. “We have seen tremendous trading using this tool. Customers adapt to it fairly quickly,” hecommented.
A new solution for online B2B retailers shipping goods worldwide is ‘XML Services’, Jairam said.This is a set of back-office tools that e-retailers can integrate into their own shipping systemenabling shipping by DHL Express and additional services for retailers such as price quotes,capability information, tracking and pick-up scheduling. This solution was proving popular in Asia,particularly China and India, he said.
