Major German parcel operators DPD, GLS, Hermes and DHL expect strong growth in parcel volumesduring the ongoing pre-Christmas season, with additional staff and longer working times to ensure
all presents are delivered on time.DPD Germany expects volumes to increase around 20% during the holiday period compared to usualvolumes during the year, the company’s spokesman Peter Rey told CEP-Research. “In the week beforeChristmas Eve, we even expect additional growth of 15-20%. With some of our major retail customers(for example in the clothing industry and consumer electronics) and online shippers, the volumegrowth is even estimated at up to 75%.”
For the whole year, the company predicts moderate growth in mid single-digit range. “For nextyear (2015), we expect double-digit volume growth. Innovative B2C services will remain among themain growth factors driving services while we want to maintain DPD’s strong position in the B2Bbusiness.”
He highlighted the company’s increasing focus on B2C: “DPD consistently pursues the goal ofdoubling its B2C market share to 15% by 2018 at the latest.” During the second half of this year inparticular, DPD has signed up numerous B2C shippers and also delivers, e.g. for Amazon, Home24,Justfab or Asos.
“The Predict service has strongly contributed to us winning new customers. Since July this year,DPD has been offering a half-hour delivery time slot for parcel recipients. Numerous options toredirect a parcel as well as a map-based live tracking provide a level of flexibility andtransparency, which is currently unique in the German parcels market,” Rey claimed.
Beating DPD’s Christmas volume forecast, GLS expects even stronger growth of 30% during thepre-Christmas period compared to usual volumes, while on some peak days it even handles twice asmany parcels as usual, Anne Putz, Head of Corporate Communications at GLS, told CEP-Research.
In terms of preparations and measures put in place to cope with the rising end-of-the-yearvolumes, GLS has extended depot working times and hired additional staff, especially for itssorting operations. “The number of additional employees and the working times vary from depot todepot, depending on parcel volumes, the number of delivery tours and weather conditions. Parceldeliveries are made via independent transport companies which also adapt to rising volumes withadditional staff and delivery vehicles.”
During the busy holiday period, GLS is taking on new customers only if it can still maintain itsservice quality for existing customers. In addition, it is avoiding IT system changes, new hardwareor service changes during the peak season. “Before the peak season started, several facilities havebeen expanded and modernised, for example in Weilheim an der Teck (south-western Germany),” Putzadded.
In the first half this year (April – September), the GLS Group recorded solid growth of 7% bothin revenues and parcel volumes.
Hermes Germany expects double-digit growth of 10% during the ongoing Christmas period comparedto last year, which would mean a new record in holiday shipping volumes, boosted by the continuousboom in online trade. The company and its delivery partners are employing an additional 5,500 staffnationwide for the peak season.
Thanks to the thriving online trade, Hermes expects again a strong volume increase with morethan 35 million shipments to be sent across Germany and Austria during the pre-Christmas peakseason. During the peak period, the company’s delivery fleet will also be expanded by up to 3,000additional vehicles.
“For Hermes, Christmas is by far the most important time of the year,” Dirk Rahn, DirectorOperations, Hermes Logistics Group Germany (HLGD), said. “Especially the last ten days beforeChristmas Eve are very busy: our delivery staff then ring at more than 1.5 million doors all overGermany.”
To further improve its parcel delivery services, Hermes Germany, as the first parcel operator,has made it possible for customers to create a digital parcel label via smartphone and tablet aspart of its free apps. Customers just need to click on the “create a parcel label” function. These ‘ mobile’ labels can then be printed out and paid for at more than 14,000 Hermes parcel shops acrossGermany, without any additional costs for the customers.
“Smartphones and tablets have become an important part of our lives. The introduction of themobile parcel label is thus not only consistent, but has been long overdue in the German parcelsmarket,” said Thomas Horst, the company’s sales director. “With the new service, we can reach, onthe one hand, the digital, younger generation, even better. On the other hand, we help all thosepeople who neither have a printer at home nor at work, which is an increasing number of people.”& amp; amp; lt; /p>
In the last few weeks, Hermes has additionally equipped all its parcel shops in Germany withupdated scanner technology. In 2015, customers will be able to transfer the online parcel labelscreated on www.myhermes.de for mobile, print-free usage on smartphonesand tablets. The online parcel labels in the PDF format will still be available, as well as thetraditional parcel labels that are filled in manually at the parcel shops.
Similarly, DHL Parcel Germany has also been intensively preparing for the busy pre-Christmasperiod. It has taken on about 10,000 additional seasonal workers this year and secured sufficienttransport capacity with 8,500 additional delivery vehicles to cope with the expected peak volumes.Moreover, Deutsche Bahn will be operating 62 special trains for the company on the weekends duringthe Christmas period, a spokesman for Deutsche Post DHL told CEP-Research. But he declined tocommunicate parcel volume growth expectations for Christmas.
“It is now paying off that we have been permanently working on expanding our parcelsinfrastructure since the announcement of the €750 million investment in our network capacity,especially in larger sorting centres, to cope with the future volume growth. In the context of theupcoming holiday season, it enables us to handle up to 1 million parcels per hour at our sortingcentres. Compared to the previous year, this represents a further capacity increase of 10%. On peakdays before Christmas, we expect up to 8 million parcels.”
In 2013, DHL Parcel Germany transported over 1 billion parcels, which represents an increase of7.4%, compared to 855 million in 2012. During the third quarter of 2014, Deutsche Post DHL’s parcelbusiness in Germany once again contributed significantly to volume and revenue growth of theoverall business unit within the Group with an increase of over 8%. “In the next few years, weexpect the parcels market to grow 5-7% per year benefitting our business above-average,” thespokesman concluded.
For the overall interactive trade in Germany, the country’s e-commerce association bevh expectsan 8.2% increase to €11.2 billion in revenues for this Christmas season, with e-commerce revenuesrising by 12.7% to €9.5 billion. This year, 85% of the overall interactive trade revenues areexpected to be generated online.
According to bevh’s latest survey conducted in November, 50% of the retailers surveyed expectstrong or very strong growth during this last quarter of the year, while 44% of the retailersexpects their revenue to rise and 43% to maintain sales levels. Only 13% expect their revenues todrop.
To boost their Christmas revenues, many e-retailers increasingly offer special promotionsincluding discounts, coupons, contests or free delivery. In 2013, the last week of November and thesecond week of December turned out to be as the strongest sales periods. 90% of the retailerssurveyed also recorded average or even below-average returns last Christmas.
The best-selling product groups this Christmas will remain textiles, consumer electronics andbooks. Other popular categories for Christmas gifts include games and toys, watches and jewellerybut also furniture and decoration, according to the bevh survey of German e-retailers.
Meanwhile, the German retail association HDE expects moderate growth of 1.2% in the overallretail sector this Christmas with revenues estimated at €85.5 billion. It expects the online tradealone to generate €10 billion, which corresponds to an 18% increase compared to last year’sChristmas forecast. HDE also expects an increase in ‘last-minute shoppers’ during the last ten daysbefore Christmas.
Despite the strong Christmas expectations of the parcel operators and the retail associations inGermany, the German Parcel & Express Logistics association (BIEK) has predicted a slowdown ofthe German CEP market in the second half of the year due to the weaker German economy and loweronline sales growth.
