European postal operators’ B2C parcel volumes appear to have been boosted by a strong 'Black Friday' and 'Cyber Monday', although hard data is not yet available in most cases.
PostNord confirmed to CEP-Research today that it had seen an increase in the number of packages last weekend but did not have detailed figures on parcel volumes.
“The Black Friday phenomenon has now been embraced by the Swedes, one in five of them buying something on sale during Black Friday, generating a total of SEK 2.3 billion," a spokesperson for PostNord said. The most common items purchased were clothes and consumer electronics.
Dutch postal operator PostNL processed and delivered close to 1.3 million parcels on 1 December, an increase of 25% on the equivalent day last year.
"In the Netherlands we are not yet familiar with ‘Black Friday’ or ‘Cyber Monday.' However, we have Sinterklaas (St Nicholas), where people give presents to each other like in other countries at Christmas,” a PostNL spokesman explained.
"More and more people order these presents online. Sinterklaas is next Saturday and a lot of people in the Netherlands ordered their presents last weekend. That explains the increase," he said.
PostNL's Parcels Director, Gerrit Mastenbroek, said the company's 18 sorting centres had been working “full steam” for several days in order to cope with demand generated by the Sinterklaas celebrations.
“We have 3,100 parcel delivery drivers working today (1 December). That is 500 more than we would have on an average delivery day. It’s also great that we are delivering five evenings a week this year. That means even more of Sinterklaas’ helpers are on their way to deliver all the presents on time,” he added.
Meanwhile in the UK, one major supermarket retailer, Tesco, appears to have been somewhat overwhelmed by the volumes generated by Black Friday.
A message to customers on its online sales and home deliveries website, Tesco Direct, reads: "Sorry, due to Black Friday all deliveries will take 5-7 days. Excludes selected Partners. We are currently experiencing high demand. If you choose Click+Collect or Standard delivery, please allow 5-7 days for your order to arrive. Express delivery is currently unavailable for Tesco products.
"Selected Partners will continue to offer Express Delivery and 2-5 day Standard Delivery; where available, you will be able to select these options at checkout."
Contacted by CEP-Research to explain the reasons why Tesco had apparently been caught out by Black Friday demand and whether they included inadequate delivery provision or other logistics issues, a company spokesperson replied: “Due to the popularity of our Clubcard Boost event, we put in place a 5-7 day delivery period for all Click & Collect and home delivery orders on Tesco Direct to guarantee timely delivery for customers. We’ve kept this delivery option in place over the course of our 'Black Friday' event.”
Further afield, in the US, UPS has not disclosed package volume specifically for 'Black Friday' and 'Cyber Monday.'
“UPS does not itemize volume through the holiday period. We have provided our global forecast and then will report the actual volume and trends with our 4Q earnings in early February," a spokesperson said.
"In general, we have close collaboration with customers for mutual commitments and effective planning to align capacity and resources. This has included planning by traditional and online merchants for their promotions that were incorporated with volume planning for last week and this week. UPS plans to deliver 630 million packages worldwide between Thanksgiving and December 31, which represents 10% more than 2014 volume," the spokesperson added.
As for FedEx, the company is sticking to an earlier forecast that it will move "a record-breaking 317 million shipments between 'Black Friday' and Christmas Eve." This marks a 12.4% increase in year-over-year seasonal volume.
"It’s too early in the season for us to have numbers to share (on Black Friday and Cyber Monday)," a spokesperson said.
