Regional couriers providing same-day delivery could be one of the winners from the boom ine-commerce that is driving growth in the courier, express and parcels (CEP) market, according to
the German association BdKEP.The German CEP market grew 2.4 per cent to €18.2 billion last year while volumes grew fasterby 4 per cent to 2.55 billion shipments, according to a recent study by MRU GmbH for theassociation, which represents mainly regional couriers and smaller parcel firms.
Distance trading, and online shopping in particular, was the key growth factor last year, thestudy confirmed. Figures from the German E-Commerce and Distance Selling Association (bvh) showedthat B2C deliveries already account for nearly 50 per cent of all parcel deliveries. At the sametime, return parcels (C2B), with 7 per cent of overall volumes, now exceed the consumer shippingmarket (C2C), which has a 6 per cent market share.
BdKEP expects consumers to increasingly determine in the future how products will be sent.One result is that the online retailers might lose their ‘additional profits’ generated from ‘excessive delivery costs’ charged to recipients. “Online retailers, just like traditionalretailers, should only indicate all-inclusive ‘final prices’ and not shipping costs to stopcompetition distortion,” BdKEP said, urging the EU to implement the request as part of its GreenPaper on improved parcel delivery services.
Meanwhile, the large distance trade segment also explains why courier companies that arestrongly focused on B2B are not increasing their turnover or volumes, the association noted.
In contrast, international examples show that regional deliveries to consumers have a bigfuture. “At a regional level, consumers expect not only same-day deliveries but also deliverieswithin a few hours. This cannot be offered by parcel operators but could be a stronghold for citycouriers,” BdKEP said.
BdKEP chairman Rudolf Pfeiffer said: “The market study once again provides insightfulinformation about the diversity of the CEP market and shows in particular that it doesn’t pay foranyone to trim the market figures according to their needs, as was often the case with otherstudies. The digital age is dramatically restructuring shipping of goods and not just of documents.”
