DPD Germany to launch “digital parcel label” next year
DPD Germany is introducing a new “digital parcel label” that will mean online shoppers no longer need to print out a shipping label to return items to retailers. The new feature will be available from spring next year alongside conventional shipping label options.
It will be available for all small business and individual shippers using DPD’s online parcel shipping portal DPD Web Parcel, and also for e-commerce platforms like eBay.
The digital parcel label will take the form of a QR code sent to a mobile phone of a shipper or online shopper when a parcel shipment is booked. Instead of needing to print out a label, the shipper takes their phone to a DPD Parcel Shop and has the QR code scanned.
Once the QR code has been scanned, the parcel shop employee then fixes a “mini-label” onto the parcel to take the shipment through the DPD network to its destination.
DPD said its new innovation aims to make parcel shipping more convenient, and accessible to households that do not own a printer.
The company pointed out that at the moment, the number of German households owning a smartphone (40.4m) is larger than the number that have a printer (29.34m).
“Digitalised world”
“Printed paper is losing more and more of its role in our increasingly digitalised world,” said Boris Winkelmann, the DPD Germany chief executive.
“Nowadays many households manage very well without having their own printer. In addition the shipping of parcels is a lot more convenient and flexible if customers are not dependent on physical parcel labels.”
The new digital parcel label feature will initially be available to shippers using DPD’s online parcel shipping website and eBay sellers.
DPD said digital parcel labels for returns solutions was “in the pipeline”.
The company, majority-owned by La Poste’s international express parcels subsidiary GeoPost, is in the process of attempting to double its market share in the highly competitive German parcels market, to 15% by 2018.
Its strategy is to use technical innovation to “make the parcel digital”, thereby improving the convenience of parcel shipping by measures including better tracking, shipping management and convenience of delivery arrangements.
