Swiss Post today unveiled a wide-ranging e-commerce growth strategy, with investment inlogistics facilities, parcel terminals and customer solutions, to profit from the boom in B2C
deliveries and compensate for the declining mail business.The postal group pledged to invest “a high double-digit million” Swiss franc figure in itse-commerce logistics capabilities in the next few years to cope with expected volume growth from111 million parcels in 2012 to some 140 million in 2020, based on 5% annual growth in the parcelsmarket.
The new product portfolio ranges from ‘YellowCube’ added-value logistics services fore-retailers to more flexible delivery and returns options for recipients and the nationwide rolloutof parcel terminals as alternative delivery points.
Presenting the new strategy to journalists, including CEP-Research, in Bern, CEO Susanne Ruoffsaid that e-commerce and the surge in smartphone ownership is changing how Swiss firms sell theirproducts and how consumers buy. “Customers are deciding how to buy and Swiss Post makes thisavailable,” she declared.
“We want to defend our market, create new revenue opportunities and ensure that Swiss Post notonly stands for trust and quality but increasingly for customer focus and dynamism. We are at thestart of a journey,” she said.
Dieter Bambauer, head of PostLogistics, said the Swiss e-retailing market grew 7.5% to CHF 5.7billion last year compared to just 1.4% average annual growth for the whole retail market, ande-commerce now represented 6% of the retail sector. By 2020, 40% of non-food products could bebought online, he predicted. At the same time, online retailers would open more flagship stores,leading to more ‘hybrid’ retail offerings.
For logistics operators, this dramatic trend meant fewer pallet deliveries to branches andstores and more individual deliveries to consumers, he explained. International e-commerce wouldalso grow, with online orders from the USA and Asia commonplace in five years’ time, he said.
Outlining the company’s e-commerce plans, Bambauer said Swiss Post would open a new e-logisticsfacility in 2014 at Oftringen, at the junction of the north-south Basel-Luzern and east-westZurich-Bern motorways, and close to its parcel centre at Härkingen, where CHR 20 million will beinvested in capacity expansion. This ‘YellowCube’ logistics facility would offer a broad range ofe-logistics services from warehousing to packaging and distribution.
With YellowCube, Swiss Post will not only deliver and return items of mail order businesses inthe future. It will also handle storage, picking, packing and returns. In addition, Swiss Postoffers its business customers complete solutions from creating and running online shops with anintegrated payment solution through direct marketing to delivery to the end customer and returnshandling.
“We want to offer e-retailers one-stop logistics with high-performing services,” Bambauerdeclared. “The aim of the YellowCube portfolio is to help SME e-retailers to competitive logisticsstructures. Our customers will get scala effects in their logistics that otherwise only largeplayers with specific expertise have.”
On the recipients side, Swiss Post will roll out a much wider and more flexible choice ofdelivery options to complement its already very high first-time delivery success rate. Since Mayconsumers can select to receive deliveries in the evening (between 17.00 and 20.00) and on Saturdaymornings. From this autumn, recipients will be able to select their delivery preferences via awebsite portal, including options such as delivery location and time.
At the end of June, Swiss Post will introduce a new returns service under the name ‘Pick@home’. E-retailers will be able to offer customers theoption of having returns collected from home by Swiss Post instead of having to take them to a postoffice or other location.
In the autumn, the postal operator will start to install 40 parcel terminals under the name‘MyPost24’ at busy consumer locations to offer alternative delivery points. The initial machineswill be located in Zurich and Bern. In 2014, a nationwide rollout is planned that could see some200-250 self-service machines installed, depending on how the new technology is accepted. Thisinvestment is likely to cost a high single-digit million euro sum.
“We are convinced that with this portfolio of services we will be the preferred partner fore-retailers and recipients in the future,” Bambauer said.
