Government measures to address the coronavirus have led to a surge in online orders in the Netherlands and Belgium, according to PostNL.
With people staying at home and bricks-and-mortar shops closing their doors, online orders have been on a steep upward trend, with the convenience of online shopping changing into a necessity to buy supplies from web shops, the postal operator said.
However, the company warned: “PostNL is doing everything in its power to continue to deliver on time as much as possible, but the sheer volume of business, corona measures and staff shortages because of illness may cause delays at local level,”
Meanwhile, mail deliveries are running as scheduled and people are even sending lots of greeting cards to keep each other’s spirits up in these difficult times, it pointed out.
In normal times, PostNL delivers an average 900,000 parcels and 6.8 million letters every weekday across the Benelux region.
Herna Verhagen, PostNL’s CEO, said: “The simple fact that we’ve managed to continue our mail and parcel deliveries – and so enable people to stay at home – is a huge tribute to everyone working for and with us.
“Of course, I’m talking about our postmen and women hitting the streets and delivering mail and parcels everywhere, but also about every single one of our people helping to make it all happen: those sorting, preparing, processing and transporting, and everyone else playing their part in this logistics operation.
“I’m very proud of and have tremendous respect for our people, whose sheer dedication and commitment are making it possible for us to continue to deliver post and parcels. We would ask everyone out there to give them plenty of space, and so enable them to do their jobs safely.”
