French parcel operators including La Poste, TNT Express, Relais Colis and DHL Express expect togenerate strong double-digit growth in their parcel volumes this Christmas and have expanded their
operations with additional staff, delivery rounds and vehicles.With e-commerce being the main driver for the growing parcel volumes during the Christmasperiod, French online sales are estimated to increase by 10% this year, compared to the lastholiday period, to reach €11.1 billion, according to the French e-commerce association Fevad.
La Poste expects its parcel volumes during the pre-Christmas season to increase by 30% onaverage compared to the usual volumes. During the last week before Christmas, it even predictsspectacular 160% growth. On normal days, the postal operator usually handles around 1 millionparcels per day through its domestic parcel business ColiPoste. But from November onwards, theshipment flows gradually increase and can reach over 2 million parcels daily in December.
To ensure that all the parcels are delivered on time, La Poste is operating more delivery toursand 400 additional vehicles per day, with a total of 900 trucks being deployed during the Christmasperiod which accounts for 20% of the company’s annual revenues.
La Poste’s express subsidiary Chronopost has been preparing since September for the busy holidayperiod to ensure on-time delivery of 700,000 parcels daily expected during peak days in December,with an estimated 650,000 parcels on average during the last two weeks of this month. This wouldequal an increase of around 3% compared to last year’s Christmas volumes (including B2B and B2Cshipments, mainly through e-retailers).
During this festive period, Chronopost’s two main objectives are to maintain the service qualityfor B2B shipments at the same level as for the whole year and to absorb the B2C growth to offer agood quality, La Poste stressed. To keep its service quality at a high level, Chronopost has openedfive regional hubs, in addition to the hubs in Chilly-Mazarin, Corbas and Poitiers, and sixadditional depots, with 1,500 additional delivery routes and one air connection.
Chronopost will also rely on its tour optimisation tools to calculate and optimise thedistribution of its new ‘Predict’ service which enables it to define and inform the recipientsabout the time slot during which the driver will deliver the parcel, thus contributing to morereliability. Chronopost express parcels handed in at post offices on 23 December will still arrivein time for Christmas Eve on 24 December.
An important element in the group’s parcel delivery activities is Pickup, its network of over7,300 parcel collection and drop-off points in France. In the ‘Île-de-France’ region whichcomprises the metropolitan area of Paris, Pickup also installed 100 automatic parcel terminals atthe SNCF railway stations. Accessible during the opening hours of the railway stations, themachines allow customers to pick up their parcels at any time during the day, on their way to orfrom work, within three working days. In addition, the Pickup shuttle simplifies exchange ofobjects between individuals. They just need to leave their Christmas gift in the bag available atall partner parcel points of Pickup and it will reach the recipient within 48 hours.
Meanwhile, TNT France expects an even stronger increase in Christmas parcel volumes than LaPoste with an average growth of 40% nationwide, with some of its sites in the Paris region evenestimated to handle up to 60% more parcels compared to normal volumes.
“We are observing a strong acceleration of store deliveries for daily restocking,” Alexic Forey,Director Lifestyle Market, TNT France, said. “Brands often prefer sales space at the expense ofstorage space to make their available square metres as profitable as possible. Companies opt forlean management and therefore need a true partnership with their carriers. In this respect, weoffer an express delivery service ‘shop to shop’ to facilitate product flows and improveresponsiveness and efficiency.” Shop to shop means stock disposal of an article that can’t be soldfor the benefit of another. This solution is increasingly used during Christmas and sales periodsas it enables retailers to free up the sales area, to reduce ‘sleeping’ stocks and develop a strongproduction flow.
To respond to the evolution of e-commerce as well, TNT France offers to its e-retail customers aservice called ‘web to store’. It enables internet users to pick up their purchases previouslyordered online directly at a shop, which results in cost savings through pooling transport andgenerates additional in-store sales. TNT also enables customers to manage their deliveries onlineby modifying date and place of delivery until midnight before the scheduled delivery date.
In response to the growing volumes of its customers, TNT France also uses higher capacity trucksfor some of its national and international connections and has added direct daily flights betweenmajor cities (Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseille, Lyon). It has put ‘on-call vehicles’ in placeto instantly increase its transport capacity if needed, according to the specific needs of itscustomers.
At Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, TNT has been operating a new air connection fromand to Nice since November to ensure deliveries within 24 hours in this region. With the growingvolumes leading to increased sorting in the mornings, the flight enables the firm to reducedelivery times, in line with its commitment to next-day delivery.
At its operational sites, TNT France has also been hiring additional staff to finish sorting ontime despite increasing volumes. In Marseille, for example, 10 additional workers have been hiredfor the peak period. Certain sites have been re-organised and optimised to receive thousands ofadditional parcels and assure smooth parcels handling. Additional equipment has been ordered andmade available to the teams including forklifts and delivery scanners.
In high density areas, the company has doubled its delivery rounds, with one round destined forcompanies before 1pm and another for individuals before 6pm. In Lyon, for example, it is currentlyoperating 26 additional rounds.
French B2C parcels operator Relais Colis, which has an integrated network of 4,800 partnerretailers in France and Belgium, expects to double its daily parcel volumes from the usual 100,000parcels a day to over 200,000 in December, with a total of 3 million parcels to be delivered thismonth. This represents 10,000 delivery rounds and 10,000 trucks allocated for Christmas deliverieswhile 15% of the truck delivery fleet has been replaced with bigger vehicles to increase deliveryvolumes.
In addition to its three national hubs in France that ensure parcel distribution through 25regional depots, Relais Colis has opened two additional hubs in Bordeaux and Lyon to cope with thevolume surge during the peak period.
In France, Relais Colis operates 4,300 Relais service points and has increased the number ofservice points in highly-populated areas. In the ‘Île-de-France’ region, for example, it raised thenumber from 800 to 1,000 points during the ongoing peak period. The company plans to extend itsnationwide network to 4,400 service points by the end of this year.
“The end of the year is a busy period for Relais Colis, its retail partners and customers, withthe business activity nearly doubling and the logistics capacities are adjusted accordingly. Thanksto our employees, our experience and large-scale organisation measures we put in place, we are ableto deliver over 200,000 parcels per day, instead of the usual 100,000 parcels on average. We areproud to be able to always provide a high service quality to our customers in the particularlyimportant period,” Jean-Sébastien Leridon, Director Sales, Relais Colis, said.
Meanwhile, Relais Colis has expanded its network of self-service parcel terminals called ‘Packcity’ for pick-up and drop-off of parcels in France that it launched in cooperation withmailroom equipment provider Neopost last year. As part of the new partnership, 50 additional parcelterminals will be installed at the end of this year and throughout the next year, adding to thefirst lockers that have been installed at the end of 2013, with the pilot phase turning outsuccessful. Manufactured by the Austrian firm KEBA, they have the capacity to accommodate about 110parcels and are located at convenience stores in urban centres and within shopping malls.
DHL Express France earlier announced that it expects 30% growth in holiday parcel volumes duringthe first two weeks before Christmas from 8-24 December. “For December, we expect a 9% increase inexport shipments and 12% for imports, compared to last year,” the company’s CEO Michel Akavipredicted. “During the peak Mondays on 15 and 22 December, we estimate a 50% growth in parcelvolumes. Up to 150,000 parcels are due to be handled daily during the peak days.”
To cope with the peak volumes, the company has put in place 600 additional delivery tours withadditional staff, with deliveries also being made in the evenings and on Saturdays, as wellautomatic pre-alert systems (SMS, e-mail) for customers. If requested, recipients can order theirparcels to be delivered to a neighbour, their workplace, to one of DHL’s collection points or makean appointment for home delivery.
In response to the growing B2C import volumes, DHL France has extended its network of parcelcollection points (‘Points Relais’) from 4,300 to 4,500, which it operates in cooperation withFrench B2C delivery company Mondial Relay as part of the partnership launched at the end of 2013.In addition, it has launched 80 ‘Super Relais’ points with a bigger storage capacity in Paris, Lyonand Marseille. During the peak Christmas period, DHL Express expects to handle 3,500 parcels perday through the collection points in cooperation with Mondial Relay.
