DPD Germany planning €90m investment in network next year

Parcel and express delivery company DPD Germany is planning to invest EUR 90m in expanding its network next year, after a record 2011. The company, part of La Poste’s GeoPost Group, said interim figures suggest that this year will see a 6% increase in volumes compared to 2010, with around 320m shipments made.

Assuming final figures bear out the interim estimate, DPD said it has been delivering 70,000 more parcels each day this year, on average.

Despite less than positive prospects for the economy as a whole, the company said its growth was above that of the parcel market at large, and it will therefore be “confident” of growing further in 2012.

Arnold Schroven, the DPD chief executive, said: “We’re sticking to our expansion plans and in the coming year we will be spending over EUR 90m in Germany alone on increasing our capacity significantly and optimising our network.”

B2C

One of the keys to success at DPD Germany, it said, was the transfer of services in its traditional business-to-business segment to the high-growth business-to-consumer market.

So, while the company has maintained its existing customer base in the B2B segment, it has also been able to innovate to cate to the differing demands of B2C e-commerce demand.

Schroven said a “major factor” behind DPD Germany’s B2C growth has been new “intelligent” delivery options, like the FlexDelivery service launched in Germany last month, in which parcel recipients are alerted to an imminent delivery ahead of time by email or text message, and can then choose a preferred delivery window.

Next year, DPD Germany is aiming to offer two-hour delivery windows, rather than the current two-to-six hour windows.

Schroven explained that the aim of the service was to make communication easy with the recipient to ensure parcels can be delivered on the first attempt.

“This increases satisfaction on the part of the consignees and demonstrably reduces the number of returned parcels,” he said.