DPD Germany partners with Palletways for express pallets service
Parcel and express carrier DPD Germany has formed a partnership with European palletised freight network Palletways to launch its own service for palletised freight. The new DPD Max service is aimed at business customers who need to ship bulky or heavy items along with their regular parcel volumes.
The new offering is available for shipping items up to 1.2 tonnes per pallet within Germany and to 17 European countries.
The service is available for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer shippers.
DPD Germany, part of La Poste’s international parcel business DPDgroup, said it aims to provide a full range of shipping services for business customers.
The company claimed that customers using other DPD parcel services would be able to simplify their shipping by using DPD pallet services rather than those of rivals.
The actual transport of items will be carried out by Palletways for pallets and DPD for parcels.
Ralf Bürk, the director products and services international at DPD Germany, said: “This new freight product rounds off the practical and useful services with which we supplement our parcel shipping. DPD now provides one-stop shopping for everything – from standard letters to freight which can weigh tonnes.
“In addition, the crossborder structure of DPD MAX makes the service even more attractive, for international consignors in particular,” added Bürk.
Cross-border
Thanks to the partnership with Palletways, DPD said that international shippers could use DPD Max to ship pallets to countries including the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Poland.
The partnership will also see Palletways able to offer its customers access to DPD parcel shipping services on similar “favourable” one-stop-shop terms.
Palletways was founded in the UK more than two decades ago and currently has a turnover of around £200m, with its members working out of 400 depots throughout Europe to handle 30,000 pallets per day. DPD Germany has 76 depots in Germany and 6,000 parcel shops, handling around 320m parcels a year.
At the same time as forming its partnership with DPD Germany, Palletways is extending its network to Poland and the Baltic states, where DPD will provide the transport and delivery of palletised freight. DPD had provided domestic palletised freight services in Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
