French e-commerce retailer, the 3SI Group, is investing over €15 million in delivery subsidiary Mondial Relay “to support the strong growth in its activities and “to enable it to increase its market share in a rapidly expanding sector.”
The French B2C last-mile specialist, which operates a nationwide network of about 5,000 Point Relais parcel points, has also strengthened its partnerships with major e-retailer PriceMinisterRakuten and with eBay in recent months, and has set up several parcel lockers.
3SI Group (formerly ‘Trois Suisses’) is part of Germany’s Otto Group, the parent of Hermes Logistics. Mondial Relay is the group’s French delivery partner, cooperating in the ‘Europarcel’ network for cross-border deliveries.
The €15 million spending focuses on a mechanisation programme for all of Mondial Relay's 24 distribution centres across France by 2017. The programme was launched at the end of 2015, with the automation of two initial branches in Lyon and Nice which has already delivered “clearly discernible results,” the group said.
“Ergonomics and productivity have made a huge leap forward, with a 40% greater capacity to process additional flows coupled with the optimisation of parcel traceability.”
The group added: “Mechanisation will thus bring about an increase in the processing capacities of production sites, and maximise flow reliability. This industrialised process will ensure that the business is better placed to cope with peak activity periods such as Christmas, New Year and the sales.”
The group went to underline that the programme would fulfil three key objectives: “to enhance the quality of parcel sorting and traceability; to boost production capacity and to check the weight and volume of each parcel.”
Mondial Relay's chairman. Antoine Pottiez, said: “This scheme will enable us to increase our flows processing capacity, to keep our parcels safe and secure and to deliver a higher quality service to our customers.
“We're sending out a strong signal to other market players, confirming the trust placed in us by online retailers. We would not have been able to implement this transformation of our branches without the exemplary way in which our teams have worked on this large-scale project. What’s more, all of our teams have been keen to welcome the changes to their departments as well as the new responsibilities that these developments entail,” he added.
Last October, Mondial Relay deepened its commercial cooperation with PriceMinister-Rakuten, which offers online shoppers the option of deliveries to a Point Relais store. Private online sellers can now also use this service as well as business customers.
In September, eBay France opened up dedicated counters at various large Point Relais outlets across the country where eBay sellers can prepare and ship their parcels. Last year, Mondial Relay also set up parcel lockers at several Decathlon stories across France.
Specialising in B2C and C2C deliveries, Mondial Relay offers a fully comprehensive range of distribution solutions for parcels of all sizes and weights via its network of Points Relais outlets, with Drive and Home Delivery services for parcels weighing up to 130kg. The parcel shop network is planned to expand to 6,500 locations by the end of 2016.
With 600 employees, the company generated a turnover of €162 million in 2015, dispatching more than 49 million parcels. This represented growth of 23% compared with 2014.
Mondial Relay numbers some 8,000 online retailers among its customers, ten of which are ranked among the Top 15 online retail websites (source: FEVAD, March 2015), including amazon.fr, showroomprive.com, asos.fr, decathlon.fr, Cdiscount.com, rueducommerce.fr, eBay.fr, priceminister.com, auchan.com, groupon.fr, leroymerlin.fr, nespresso.com, 3suisses.fr, hm.com, boulanger.fr, marksandspencer.fr and venteprivee.com.
