DHL is celebrating five years of its Packstation parcel collection points with plans to expand thenetwork further across Germany.
There are currently more than 700 of the automated parcel storage machines located in morethan 120 towns and communities throughout the country, the DPWN subsidiary said. In 2007, more than25 additional town and cities, including Dresden, Giessen and Osnabrück, will be added to thenetwork.
There are over 500,000 registered users of the service which enables consumers to drop offand collect their parcels at convenient times.
During the week of January 15 – 19, DHL is reducing the price for parcels delivered viaPackstations, while several online retailers and mail order firms are offering discounts or freedelivery via the parcel outlets.
“Five years ago the Packstation was an experiment, today it is taken for granted by manypeople – just like a cash dispenser,” said Steffen Frankenberg, Packstation manager at DHL. Theparcel service is broadening its product portfolio for private consumers with online stamps forparcels and is testing 40 “parcel postboxes” in the Frankfurt region.