Hermes Germany is restructuring its domestic delivery services for recipients with a new productsegment called ‘Hermes Desired Delivery’ (‘WunschZustellung’) which includes all services that can
be additionally booked by retailers or chosen by customers.The new segment comprises various service modules that shop owners and mail order companies canoffer to their customers in addition to standard shipping. It features the ‘Desired Day’ optionenabling customers to choose a working day from Monday to Friday for their parcel to be delivered.The ‘Desired Time Window’ option additionally offers several three-hour delivery time slots on aday of their choice: 10 am–1pm, 12-3pm, 2-5pm and 6-9pm for customers to choose from.
With the ‘Desired Parcel Shop’ service, customers can also select a parcel shop of their choiceout of more than 14,000 parcel shops that Hermes operates across Germany. The ordered product willbe stored at the selected location for up to 10 days for the recipients to pick it up. They canrequest a notification message via e-mail or SMS to be informed about the arrival of the parcel atthe shop. Finally, a ‘Desired Deposit Location’ can be chosen for the delivery to be made to anyother address the recipient indicates.
These services can already be chosen during the ordering process and thus have a directinfluence on the delivery process such as the delivery day, delivery time slot or delivery to aparticular parcel shop. Regardless of which services the retailer has booked, the recipient candefine any alternative address for the parcel to be delivered to via the so-called ‘signaturerelease authorisation’.
Hermes has also bundled its standard services, which are free for consumers, under the name ‘Inclusive Services’. These include up to four delivery attempts to the customer’s doorstep. Theshipments that are delivered to and stored at a particular parcel shop for up to ten days can bepicked up increasingly late in the evenings, at night and on the weekends, thanks tocustomer-friendly opening hours. Other free services include shipment tracking in real time, theparcel delivery notification with a delivery time slot as well as the deposit of the shipment witha neighbour.
“More and more customers are looking for an individually controllable shipping process tointegrate parcel delivery seamlessly in their everyday life,” said Thomas Horst, Managing DirectorSales, Hermes Germany, said. “Hermes now offers a variety of recipient services which allow us toadapt delivery to individual customer habits. Through the restructuring, we want to highlight theseservices in a stronger way and thus encourage more shop owners to provide their customers withadditional shipping options. Only stores that put the customer at the centre of the shippingprocess will have long-term success,” he predicted.
Many Hermes customers are already using the Desired Delivery service package to make parcelshipping for their clients as simple and flexible as possible. Jan Starken, Head of InternationalMarketing at the fashion retailer bonprix, confirmed: “With Hermes, we provide the options of homedelivery, delivery to an alternative address or a parcel shop. In case of direct delivery to theparcel shop, our customers are informed via e-mail or SMS as soon as their parcel has arrived,ready for pick-up. The solution is especially suitable for people who are often en route as itprovides a high degree of flexibility and predictability.”
Dr. Sebastian Hauptmann, Senior Vice President Supply Chain & Procurement for cable TVcompany Sky Germany, also praised the individually controllable delivery process: “We offer avariety of shipping options from the standard service and express delivery to the desired deliverydate timed to exact hours that we have successfully implemented with Hermes. We believe that it isnot only the speed that counts but the differentiation – the right solution for each customer groupand each shipping occasion.”
