France’s La Poste expects a strong rise in Christmas shipment volumes this year and has expandedits e-commerce and express services as well as its parcels network to support the growth.
The French postal operator said it expects shipment volumes during Christmas to increase upto 50% compared to the rest of the year with its parcel division ColiPoste and express subsidiaryChronopost preparing months in advance for the seasonal rise in delivery volumes at the end of theyear.
Coliposte, the French leader in home delivery of parcels within 48 hours, handles a dailyaverage of 1 million parcels during the year. But the volumes grow strongly by up to 50% in thelast days before Christmas when ColiPoste registers up to 1.5 million parcels per day. To simplifylife for its customers, 700 French post offices will be open until 17:00 on Saturday 19 December tohelp cope with the 400% rise in parcel volumes at post offices at this period.
Chronopost expects to handle some 7 million parcels this month which will be 15% more thanthe same period last year. It expects traffic to reach its peak the last week before Christmas witha 45% increase compared to the rest of the year. French customers who hand in express parcels atpost offices on 23 December will still have them delivered on 24 December.
Meanwhile, Chronopost has extended the geographical coverage of its next-day delivery service“Chrono 10” providing next-day delivery before 10 a.m. from 6,000 to 24,000 French communes. Fromnow on, 89% of business and 87% of the French population can be served before 10 a.m. “Chronopostaims for a 20% increase in turnover of Chrono 10 in 2010 thanks to the extension of thegeographical coverage,” said Chronopost CEO Christian Emery.
With this service improvement, Chronopost wants to strengthen its position in express morningdelivery as part of the strategy “Essential 2010”. This is closely linked to the development ofsectoral services to better respond to the requirements of certain key sectors such as the healthindustry, manufacturing, e-commerce and electronics.
Separately, La Poste has launched an e-commerce solution for professionals as well as smalland medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) to support their economic development.
‘La Box E-commerce’ simplifies access for businessmen and SMEs to online trading respondingto all their needs. This is a simple and integrated solution to start online activities: companiescan create a website with just several mouse clicks, improve the visibility of their offer andstart selling online. It allows them to profit from personalisation, with an internet address, apresentation and an evaluation of each company; an accessible financial service and an invoicingsystem. The new e-commerce service costs a monthly subscription of €16.90 for a non-trading site (“shop-window” offer) or €39.90 for a trading site (“boutique” offer).
At the end of 2008, France counted 48,000 e-traders generating turnover of €20 billion from atotal of 218 million transactions amounting to an average of €91.94 each. In the beginning of 2009,there were 21.7 million online shoppers buying over the internet in France. In view of thedifficult economic situation, digital business is becoming increasingly important and is one of thefew growing sectors, especially for the small enterprises that play an essential role for theFrench economy, La Poste pointed out.
Separately, Exapaq, the small parcels carrier acquired by La Poste in early 2006, has openeda new depot in Rognac, a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France, due to therising volumes at the old facility in the region of Provence.
Built on an area of 18,000 sqm, the 3,000 sqm Exacentre includes 350 sqm of office space. Thenew depot handles about 9,000 parcels per day on behalf of the 350 customers. Exapaq has investedin a sorting chain longer than 120 metres and a video control system with 108 cameras on site.
