Hermes has announced moderate price increases for business customers in Germany coming intoeffect on 1 January 2015 and has further expanded its services for private customers with new “
savings sets” allowing shippers to save money when sending a certain number of parcels.The new price increase is set at 3.9% on average, in response to increasing costs in the areasof energy, transport and personnel, the company explained.
“The margins in the parcels industry continue to be extremely low, despite continuously improvedservices. Consequently, we have to include the growing costs in our pricing structure,” said ThomasHorst, Managing Director Sales at Hermes Germany.
The new prices take into account the legal minimum wage that will come into force in Januarynext year, Hermes said. It added that its delivery partners have been regularly certified by anindependent testing institute since 2012 to ensure the hourly wages of the parcel deliverers partlyexceed on the regional level the future minimal wage.
“We are raising the prices under the condition that we will further increase our deliveryquality. Accordingly, we will further develop our customer-friendly service in terms of flexibilitywhen it comes to receiving and shipping parcels.”
In its latest service expansion, Hermes Germany has introduced new savings sets for privatecustomers shipping at least 10, 50 or 100 parcels, available for the parcel sizes S, M and Lnationwide. Customers can thus save up to €45 compared to the individual tariffs per parcel, withthe savings set being sold and paid for online via www.myhermes.de/sparsets.
After the purchasing process is completed, Hermes sends a mail to the buyer with a PDF documentcontaining the shipping coupon which just needs to be printed out. The shippers then need to printthe online parcel label as usual and to paste it to the parcel, along with the shipping coupon ofthe savings set. They can hand in the parcel at one of the Hermes parcel shops.
The product launch is part of the company’s service initiative for parcel deliveries in Germany “ Hermes Always-Better-Promise”. “With the savings sets we close the gap between private customersand small commercial shippers. The product primarily targets consumers who ship between five and300 parcels per year,” Horst stressed. The offer benefits not only online shops but also privatecustomers. “Five packages per year is not much. But consumers who regularly send birthday orChristmas presents to friends and family can rapidly save money with our sets.”
As part of the “Hermes Always-Better-Promise” campaign, the company plans to launch new productsand optimise services in the coming months.
