DHL Parcel has unveiled plans to turn Berlin into ‘the parcel capital of Germany’ with a major rollout of automated solutions for increasingly mobile residents over the coming year.
By end-2016 the German parcel market leader wants to increase the number of self-service Packstations in the city from 180 at present to 500, with capacity for up to 50,000 parcels per day. In addition, it aims to install several thousand parcel box units for apartment buildings.
The third key element of the Berlin innovation project comes in the form of the DHL Parcel Shops. With nearly 900 Parcel Shops and Deutsche Post retail outlets, Berlin has the densest collection network in Germany. In the near future DHL Parcel will make these shops into places where customers can both send and pick up parcels.
According to DHL, all this will give Berlin the densest network of alternative delivery options in Germany and even across Europe by the end of next year, and half of today’s parcel volumes in the capital will be handled via DHL’s automated solutions.
Moreover, DHL Parcel will deliver shipments in the German capital even more frequently on the preferred day and expand the selection of available time windows. In addition to the current evening delivery options, additional time windows will be made available this year for delivery throughout the day.
In addition, DHL Parcel said it is pursuing completely new crowdsourcing options as part of this pilot project and is testing its own smartphone app for the first time in Germany. These approaches will make it possible to draw upon other transport options such as taxi drivers and delivery services so that parcels can reach their recipients as quickly as possible.
“E-commerce is growing around the world and is especially popular in Berlin,” said Jürgen Gerdes, Board Member for Post – eCommerce – Parcel at Deutsche Post DHL Group. “People today are more mobile than ever, and that means that traditional forms of delivery like home delivery or delivery to a neighbour of your choice are increasingly reaching their limits. That is why we as the innovation leader in the parcel industry have been developing alternative types of delivery for years now that are closely aligned with the lives and needs of online shoppers.”
DHL said that according to a recent consumer behaviour study, more than 60% of residents regularly shop online in Germany’s capital, and the trend is increasing. At the same time, these consumers are more frequently on-the-go and living in one-person households, meaning that most of the time no one is at home during the day when the parcel deliverer rings the doorbell.
“In the mid-term, thanks to these measures, we will be in a position to process more than half of all shipments in Berlin using these innovative delivery concepts and thus to offer parcel recipients in Berlin a one-of-a-kind service,” Gerdes concluded.
