As the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a significant increase in parcel volumes to private customers and new service demands, GLS Ireland in order to react with flexibly and reliability, has increased its delivery rates by an average of 5 to 6 percent.
Due to the Coronavirus crisis, within the last months, the flow of goods and parcels has suddenly shifted towards deliveries to private customers. By adjusting sorting times and mobilising additional capacity, GLS Ireland was able to keep its network flexible and provide essential logistics services to the public. This was further made possible by strict adherence to measures to protect the health and safety of all parties involved. A key measure is offering contactless delivery.
“Our employees, transport partners and their delivery drivers have worked tirelessly to prevent the flow of goods from stopping and to help people and companies to stay connected. We thank all of them for their great work!,” explained Swen Krüger, Managing Director GLS Ireland. “This extra effort and the new reality have led to increased costs, which will affect us in the longer term.”
The lockdown has accelerated the trend towards online shopping further. Accordingly, GLS Ireland sees double-digit growth in e-commerce parcels compared to before the pandemic. B2C volumes are expected to remain high resulting in more individual stops and higher efforts for last mile delivery as well as rising costs for scarce personnel and limited cargo space.
At the same time, online shoppers have higher expectations concerning a convenient parcel delivery. For years, GLS Ireland has invested in solutions like the FlexDeliveryService, which allows consignees to choose the most fitting of several delivery options. In autumn of 2019, the company further doubled the number of ParcelShops in which online shoppers may conveniently pick up their deliveries to almost 400 locations.
“In order to continue to satisfy our customers’ parcel needs despite extremely volatile parcel volumes and ever faster changing demands, further investments in our network and services are required. We will keep the quality of our services high, but to do so we will need to adjust our prices,” Swen added.