The CEO of Australia Post is confident that the postal operator will be able to make all deliveries sent before the final postal deadline on time for Christmas.

Having hired 6,000 seasonal staff and set long deadlines for posting, Australia Post’s Chief Executive Paul Graham said,“We are in good shape this year for Christmas.”

The postal operator delivered 52 million parcels in December 2021. “We are feeling quietly confident in our ability to meet the expectations of the community in relation to both our mail and particularly our parcel volumes,” Mr Graham said.

Australia Post has set long deadlines for clients to get their parcels in the system for Christmas delivery. For domestic parcel deliveries in Australia, parcels need to be sent by 12th December, while for destinations in the US this will be 28th November and the 2nd December for the UK. This hardly amounts to express delivery on the part of the postal operator, but allows it to deal with the predicted surge in volumes without it making large amounts of deliveries after Christmas Day.

In the face of a third quarter loss of €20 million, PostNL has warned of low consumer confidence impacting its business in the coming quarter.

Driven in a large part by a 200% increase in energy prices, inflation in the country is at an all-time high. This has impacted consumer confidence and in turn, many e-commerce retailers are reporting higher than expected stock levels.

“It has clearly impacted consumer spending,” Herna Verhagen said in a statement. “Retail shops as well as web shops are now signalling that their stocks are growing.”

The postal operator has also been hit by high labour costs as its unions have fought for higher pay in order to meet the cost of living crisis. Fuel and energy are also impacting PostNl’s overall costs.

“We expect these headwinds to continue in the quarters to come,” Verhagen said.

Thanks to its e-commerce retail clients engaging in discounting to shift stock, the postal operator expects that the fourth quarter will be its strongest of the year and that Q4 revenues will be similar to that of 2021.

DPD Netherlands have announced they the acquisition of Cool Runnings Transport BV, a logistics expert specialising in temperature conditioned transport of fresh and frozen food in the Netherlands and Flanders.

The acquisition fits in with DPD Netherlands’ growing interest in temperature controlled transport. Last year it acquired BK Pharma Logistics and BK Sneltransport, which work into temperature controlled pharmaceuticals and middle-mile food delivery. In acquiring Cool Runnings Transport, so the French-owned last mile carriers expands its interests into fresh food transportation.

Emiel van den Akker, Operational Director of Cool Runnings Transport BV said: “Through this collaboration with DPD we see huge opportunities to come up with an answer to the electrification of logistics. We also want to further expand our B2B network and be able to offer a good solution for B2C as well. Together we can build a strong, temperature-controlled network for Food and Healthcare, with the environment and quality at its heart.”

Eric Dietz, Former CEO of DPD Netherlands said: “We are delighted to work together with Cool Runnings Transport BV. In addition to successful ventures abroad (ChronoFresh France, DPD Fresh Belgium and Seur Frio Spain), we are now entering the fresh food market in the Netherlands. Our E-shopper Barometer study has shown that online shopping for food has grown strongly, due in part to the pandemic. This has resulted in new trends and a growing desire to consume products that are accessible through short circuits. It demands a specific type of delivery, which we can achieve together with Cool Runnings Transport BV.”



Britain based, international underwear e-commerce company Nudea has become the latest retailer to work with sustainable delivery carriers Urb-it.

One of the underwear retailer’s missions is to be kinder to the planet than its rivals. In linking up with Urb-it, so it can offer lower carbon last mile deliveries to its customers.

Priya Downes, Nudea founder & CEO, said: “We are excited to be able to offer sustainable last mile deliveries for our customers in partnership with Urb-it. We know from our life-cycle analysis that customer operations, including shipping and returns, contribute 30% to our carbon emissions, so being able to help our customers make more environmentally friendly choices means that we can collectively reduce our carbon footprint.

“From the very outset, sustainability has been at the heart of everything we do at Nudea. Us and Urb-it are both B Corp certified companies, which is a great indicator that we’re aligned on our strong, sustainable ethos.”

Urb-it has lately seen significant expansion thanks to linking up with multinational e-commerce platform Shopify that will enable the platform’s clients to offer a more sustainable form of delivery to their customers.

FedEx Express has started offering delivery notifications via WhatsApp on its FedEx Delivery Manager international (FDMi) platform in nine markets.

There are 2 billion active users of WhatsApp around the world, and this new feature provides yet another means of reaching out to recipient customers.

Nine markets chosen in the Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) region have been chosen for initial roll out including Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Indonesia.

FedEx Express’s FDMi is an e-commerce delivery solution that allows end users to customise their delivery options and alerts. Client retailers and e-commerce platforms can offer their customers, amongst other things, safe places and deferred delivery of their items, as well as in-flight changes of delivery address.

“Our collaboration with WhatsApp is a huge step toward building a robust e-commerce ecosystem, where small businesses can conveniently access tech-driven solutions and keep up with the ever-changing business landscape,” said Maribeth Espinosa, acting managing director at FedEx Express Philippines.

UK logistics provider DX Group has announced it has opened the first of eight new parcel depots planned for the current financial year. It will support the expansion of DX Group’s DX Express division that runs its parcel delivery operations.

The new depot is in Basildon, Essex and is dedicated to secure, next day delivery of parcels for both B2B and B2C clients. It will mostly serve the Southend and Chelmsford areas. Aimed at expanding parcel delivery capacity in this part of Essex, the new depot is expected to improve service levels by providing more localised support to customers.

As part of its £25 million change programme, DX Group has seen its DX Express parcels service grow strongly. The company sees more scope for growth in this segment, which has seen volume levels grow significantly in recent months. It has also invested in new vehicles, equipment and technology as part of the change programme in its two divisions, DX Freight and DX Express.

 
Martin Illidge, Managing Director of DX Express, commented: “The new depot in Basildon is the first of eight new DX Express sites planned for this financial year. They will help to support the continuing growth of our Parcels service, with the new site reinforcing our presence in Essex.

“An important element in growing our Parcels operation has been our model of providing a high-quality, more localised and personal service, and we look forward to further expansion, which the Group is supporting with significant new investment.”
 

Contract logistics provider GXO Logistics has announced it has had its contract with Manchester renewed. The retail, food and beverage logistics operations to vendors at the airport by GXO is a continuation of a relationship that has lasted 16 years to date.

Over the last 16 years, Manchester Airport’s customer facing retail and catering operation has grown considerably and now accounts for more than 70 outlets across the site. GXO now delivers as many as a million items a year to the airport.

For the logistics operation, GXO operates a 29,000 square foot screening and consolidation centre that sends up to 80 truckloads a day to the airport.

“We’re proud to renew our long-standing contract with Manchester Airport,” said Gavin Williams, GXO Managing Director, UK and Ireland. “Our team provides highly flexible and responsive services that form an integral part of the airport infrastructure and leverages our extensive industry knowledge and experience with many other airside customers. We look forward to supporting Manchester Airport’s ambitious growth strategy.”

Stephen Turner, Manchester Airport Commercial Director said, “We’re pleased to extend our contract and grow our partnership with GXO which includes additional support for our latest strategic growth milestone – the opening of our Terminal 2 extension last July, which is part of our wider £1bn transformation programme. We have always been able to count on GXO’s industry experience and expertise to help us deliver a high-quality passenger experience and we look forward to building this relationship further as we recover from the pandemic.”

An investigation led by Greenpeace has shown that Amazon is instructing third party sellers to throw away and destroy returns and new goods.

The investigation by Greenpeace, Business Insider and ZDF frontal has shown that the online giant is pushing its third party sellers to throw away and destroy goods. As such Amazon itself denies responsibility for the destruction of the goods.

In the report by the group, they showed that Amazon charges third party sellers for the destruction operations, that is sometimes conducted after exporting those goods to different countries.

It is alleged that sellers are forced to have a high throughput of their goods in Amazon warehouses where they pay to use Fulfilled by Amazon. “Amazon is relying solely on fast sales and therefore considers the space on the shelf more valuable than the product inside,” said Vila Wohlgemuth, resource conservation expert at Greenpeace.

This is not new, with reports showing this behaviour by Amazon over the years. However, the investigation shows up the online giant’s continued high profile claims to being on a sustainability drive as being less than genuine.

In response to the investigation, Amazon said that less than 1% of new goods are destroyed. The investigation alleges however, that this only applies to goods sold directly by Amazon itself and not third party sellers.

In its latest report of delivery performance, the US Postal Service has seen a 92.4% on time delivery rate for its First Class Mail in the first financial quarter of 2022-2023.

While the First Class Mail drop in performance of 0.7% in this quarter compared to the last financial quarter isn’t good, the marketing mail (94.3%) and periodicals segments (86.6%) remain largely consistent with Q4, 2021-2022.

The measurement is given as the time it takes to deliver an item from acceptance into the system through to delivery.

Ahead of the coming peak season, the postal service has taken on 28,000 seasonal workers. It has taken other actions for the long term including installing 137 parcel sorting machines, taking its total number across the US to 249.

Though a heavily loss-making organisation, the organisation claims it ‘generally takes no tax dollars’ to support its operations. Currently it is undergoing a change programme called Delivering for America that has at times proved controversial as it wrestles with achieving profitability.

Parcel delivery technology and logistics company Pitney Bowes has renewed its cross-border e-commerce logistics service contract with eBay in deliveries in the UK and US.

For the eBay UK Global Shipping Program, Pitney Bowes has renewed its agreement to support the service. Under the agreement it will look to add more sellers to the program and add more value to the online marketplace. It has provided technology, compliance and cross-border delivery services to help eBay sellers in the UK reach consumers internationally since 2014.

Cristian van Tienhoven, chief operating officer at eBay UK, said: “The eBay Global Shipping Programme simplifies and removes friction from the increasing complexity of selling internationally. We look forward to working with Pitney Bowes to drive further growth for our sellers.”

Pitney Bowes has been working with eBay’s US Global Shipping Program since 2021. It will now transition sellers from the Global Shipping Program to the new eBay International Shipping system.

“As our partnership enters its second decade, Pitney Bowes is excited to be a part of eBay’s renewed vision to make international selling as simple and seamless as domestic delivery for eBay sellers and buyers around the globe,” added Gregg Zegras, EVP & president, Global Ecommerce at Pitney Bowes.