Parcel volumes up 9% at Christmas in Finland, despite recession

Finland’s newly rebranded national postal service Posti has said the country’s recession has failed to dampen Christmas parcel volumes. The Nordic country’s economy is struggling worse than most in Europe at the moment, not least because neighbouring Russia’s financial troubles have hit exports.

Nevertheless, Posti said it delivered 9% more packages last month than it did the same month in 2013.

Posti was delivering more than 1m parcels a week during the busiest periods in December, a record amount.

The festive boost means the year as a whole saw Posti handling 32.6m parcels in 2014, an increase of 800,000 on the previous year.

The company said its network of 460 automated parcel locker terminals has been gaining popularity, and has become a standard delivery option for online stores. Over 50% more deliveries went through these pickup points in 2014 compared to 2013.

As well as taking on extra staff to serve the Christmas rush, Posti said it increased the rates at which parcel terminals were serviced.

“Natural place”

Anders Falck, Posti business director, said his firm’s research suggested more than 50% of Finnish consumers were doing their Christmas shopping online.

“For many consumers, online stores are a natural place to shop,” he said.

“E-commerce has grown 5-10% this year. We are developing ever more diverse services to support e-commerce and to make the daily lives of our customers easier.”

Posti, which rebranded from Itella at the start of this year in order to simplify its market reach, is continuing to expand its network of parcel lockers, with more than ten extra locations being installed this month.

Falck said his company was also looking to other options to improve customer convenience.

He said: “Posti serves consumers at different service points with extensive opening hours. The new Posti mobile application gives an estimate of the delivery time of a parcel and also has many other useful features. We are continuing to invest in the development of mobile and web services.”