GLS is investing in modern IT equipment at its 350 parcel shops in Belgium and Luxemburg to make all the processes related to parcel shipping more convenient, fast and secure.
Over the last six weeks the new equipment introduced by GLS has been successfully tested at ten sites. The company will gradually equip all the parcel shops in the two countries with an industrial smartphone and a Bluetooth label printer.
Running on the Android operating system, the smartphone features a very intuitive parcel shop application developed by GLS. All stages of the shipping process are now represented in digital form, which offers advantages to operators, recipients and shippers. “Mountains of paper or complicated special devices” can thus be avoided, GLS explained.
"All data is entered digitally and labels and receipts are printed, which saves time and avoids errors," Luc De Schrijver, General Manager Belux, said. The application automatically checks the plausibility of the product choice and draws up a summary list at the end of the day or an inventory through a simple press of a key.
Via the application, the parcel shop operator can establish direct contact with the GLS Service Desk for assistance in complex cases or simply exchange information quickly. This link allows GLS, for example, to communicate about new services and with parcel shop partners to notify their opening hours and holidays.
This new equipment also offers advantages for the shippers and recipients of parcels. A professional label containing all the necessary shipping information is printed on site, which allows easy processing. Then a notice of receipt is printed and delivered to the parcel shipper.
When a parcel is picked up, the recipient leaves his/her electronic signature on the smartphone. The data is then transmitted directly to the GLS IT system, where it can be viewed by both the recipient and the shipper as part of the Track & Trace service.
The equipment also benefits parcel shops which receive return shipments on a daily basis. Efficient handling of returns is essential for online shops. Once a return shipment has arrived and has been scanned at the parcel shops, the data can be viewed in the system. If the parcel has not been picked up, the system draws up an additional label for its return indicating the reason, for example "parcel refused" or "storage delay exceeded".
GLS expects to roll out the IT equipment at all of its parcel shops by the end of January 2017.
