The vast majority of German online retailers have been impacted by the four-week nationwide postal strike that ended on Monday (July 6) and more than 50% switched significant volumes to Deutsche Post DHL competitors, according to a survey.
The survey of over 1,000 e-retailers by the German traders’ association ‘Händlerbund’ revealed that the postal strike had far-reaching consequences for the e-commerce sector. The results showed that nearly all (95%) of the online retailers have been impacted by the industrial action at Deutsche Post DHL.
To better cope with the strike impact, 38% of the retailers admitted they used other logistics operators in addition to Deutsche Post DHL, while 18% switched completely to other carriers and didn’t any longer rely on the postal operator at all.
Two thirds of the respondents found that the ongoing work stoppage on the part of the postal workers during the last four weeks was unacceptable. Although there were some voices within the industry calling on retailers to make their own deliveries, the majority (83%) didn’t consider this a realistic option.
Due to parcel and order backlogs, 92% of the retailers surveyed had to cope with customer complaints. Only one out of ten retailers surveyed didn’t have to deal with dissatisfied customers while every fourth retailer received many complaints during the strike.
But what was worse than the customer complaints was the revenue decline reported by three quarters of the respondents, with 92% of those expecting a further revenue loss.
Even though the strike is over, the impact for the online retailers is likely to be felt in the coming weeks, with retailers probably having to deal with cancellations and other queries, the survey found.
Meanwhile, Hermes Germany has confirmed that it profited from the postal strike. During the four weeks of industrial action, Germany’s second-largest B2C parcels operator handled 180,000 – 300,000 shipments more per day than usual during this season, which corresponds to 30% volume growth. “The bulk comes from business shippers but we also registered double-digit growth in C2C volumes,” a Hermes spokesman told the German trade magazine TextilWirtschaft.
Over the last week, the Otto Group subsidiary has taken over shipping volumes from numerous retailers who usually work with DHL. Some of them transferred all of their orders completely to Hermes, but in most cases these were rather partial volumes which Hermes wants to continue handling even after the strike is over. “We are currently in negotiations. And since more and more shippers are adopting the strategy of relying on two or several logistics operators due to the recent events, our talks also continue in a positive way,” the spokesman added.
Shortly after the postal strike started, Hermes Germany spokesman Martin Frommhold already told CEP-Research that the company was handling more private parcels and had been contacted by shippers enquiring about switching B2C volumes to the company. “Due to our modern and high-performance infrastructure we can fundamentally handle additional volume up to a certain level. Therefore we carefully review what we can do in terms of the region that the enquiry comes from – and then we are happy to help,” he commented.
