Deutsche Post DHL is making a move into the French B2C market with a 27.5% stake in final-mile delivery specialist Relais Colis to enable cross-border e-commerce deliveries to French consumers.
Announcing the deal, the German group said it would acquire a minority stake in Relais Colis, a French e-commerce logistics specialist, in order to enhance access for its DHL divisions and their customers to Europe's third largest e-commerce market. This would allow DHL's divisions, primarily DHL Parcel, to open up additional channels and expand its offering of value-added logistics services for e-commerce customers to the French market.
Privately-owned Relais Colis, with some 450 employees, handles about 30 million B2C parcels a year through a network of 3 national hubs, 22 branches and 4,800 pick-up points. It has also started to install self-service parcel lockers. The bulk of its parcels are dropped off at the parcel shops for consumers to collect but it also has a small home delivery operation. In 2012 it had revenues of €120 million.
In response to CEP-Research questions, a DP DHL spokesman said: “We have not ruled out an increase in our stake in the future, although we are not able to discuss any details at this moment in time.” But he said it would be “would be premature to speculate” that an acquisition of Relais Colis could form the basis for a future DHL Parcel France business.
DHL Parcel Europe currently operates in seven European markets – the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Sweden – as well as its home German market.
Meanwhile, DHL Express France is also seeing rapid growth in its B2C business, which now represents about 25% of its volumes.
Commenting in December on this trend, Michel Akavi, DHL Express France CEO, said: “E-commerce is experiencing unprecedented growth, in France and elsewhere. With B2C, we see an increase in deliveries from abroad of more than 25% per year. These B2C deliveries in France now account for up to 15,000 packages per day. The development of e-commerce is really transforming our business.”
DHL Express France currently has a cooperation agreement with Mondial Relay, the Hermes Europe sister company, to use its 5,000 Points Relais parcel points as alternative delivery addresses.
Asked whether DHL Express France would switch to Relais Colis instead as part of the investment, the spokesman said: “We cannot comment on any relationships or discussions with existing suppliers in France, although the deal may offer opportunities for both DHL Parcel and DHL Express to enhance their networks, particularly for last mile delivery options to end customers (i.e. in the case of international e-commerce shipments shipped as parcel or express).”
Deutsche Post DHL Group pointed out that its investment would support the further development of the French e-commerce logistics specialist's network of pickup points and its customized delivery solutions for end customers. “Relais Colis will also benefit from additional volumes of the Deutsche Post DHL Group's networks and the knowhow of the innovation leader in the German parcel market.”
