Dutch retailer signs on to PostNL alternative delivery service

PostNL is now allowing customers of the internet retailer Coolblue to pick up their purchases at one of its 2,000 postal outlets when they cannot be at home to receive delivery. Coolblue is a consumer electronics retailer established in 1999, and currently ships out around 750,000 parcels a year.

The retailer has now signed up to PostNL’s PakjeGemak service, allowing customers ordering an item before 10.30pm to pick up the product the next day after 4pm at one of PostNL’s postal outlets.

It means those consumers working during the day, who cannot be at home to receive a parcel, could collect it from a more convenient location, which includes Albert Heijn, Jumbo, Bruna and Primera retail stores.

Coolblue runs 176 specialist websites and also operates four brick-and-mortar stores serving the Benelux region.

It said the new partnership with PostNL fit with its “obsessive focus” on customer service.

The company, which offers free shipping, said new research suggests 80% of online shoppers want better control over where and when a purchase is delivered.

Coolblue founder and director Pieter Zwart, said: “Many customers have said they’d like to pick up their ordered products from a place of their choice. This is now a possibility that we can offer through the PostNL collection points, since there is always one in the neighbourhood.”