Deutsche Post launches cross-border service
Deutsche Post has launched a service called Ländernachweis, aimed at German retailers selling to customers in other countries. Ländernachweis allows both sender and recipient to view the shipping status of an item in transit across Europe and is available in Switzerland and the USA and inside the European Union it’s available in Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, the UK, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and Hungary.
Deutsche Post said the new service is primarily aimed at smaller retailers and lower-value shipments.
XPO Logistics renews fashion contract
Online luxury fashion retailer, MATCHESFASHION.COM has renewed its outsourced logistics contract with XPO Logistics, which acquired Norbert Dentressangle earlier this year.
MATCHESFASHION.COM originally outsourced its global warehousing, e-fulfilment, retail and distribution operations to XPO Logistics in late 2013 XPO Logistics is responsible for the receipt, handling and storage of product from MATCHESFASHION.COM’s suppliers, the collection and delivery of store orders and the picking, packing and despatch of online orders.
MATCHESFASHION.COM’s CEO Ulric Jerome said: “XPO Logistics provides a scalable, high quality logistics solution, which is vital in the luxury fashion industry, as there simply is no room for mistakes – our customers are paying for a luxury product and expect a superior shopping experience.
“XPO Logistics’ track record and approach to our business inspired absolute confidence, allowing us to invest our time and energy in developing and delivering that experience to our customers globally.”
Half of Christmas gifts held up at customs
Failure to give enough information about parcels sent to destinations outside the EU caused an average delay of over 11 days at customs, last Christmas according to international parcel broker ParcelHero.
As a result, 12% of all gifts shipped beyond the EU were late for Christmas last year, because they had not been properly described in the Custom’s invoice form. On average parcels labelled simply ‘gift’ or ‘present’ were held 20% longer in Customs last Christmas.’
“Our industry needs to take more steps to ensure that our customers’ gifts to friends and family overseas are sitting safely under the tree, and not in a Custom’s warehouse, on Christmas Day,” said ParcelHero’s head of PR, David Jinks MILT.
Blackbay’s Delivery Connect picked by Hong Kong’s Zuellig Pharma
Delivery Connect, a mobility enabled software solution designed by Blackbay, has been deployed as part of Zuellig Pharma’s Hong Kong & Macau distribution operation to meet increasing customer demand for real-time tracking, particularly during the last mile of the delivery journey.
Zuellig Pharma said it chose Delivery Connect because of its multilingual and preconfigured comprehensive Track and Trace and ePOD features and functionality.
Delivery Connect was fully up and running within three months, allowing Zuellig to provide its customers with transparency and visibility of their orders at each stage of the delivery process.
Christmas deliveries make UK shoppers sick
A national survey of UK shoppers’ online shopping habits has revealed that almost 5% people have taken ‘sick days’ from work in order to wait in for a delivery, potentially costing the UK economy and employers millions of pounds each year.
The survey, commissioned by Shutl, also found almost 50% of the population are planning to carry out the majority of their Christmas shopping online this year, and that more than 25% of online shoppers in the UK claim that their workplace is not happy for them to receive personal deliveries at work.
Over 40% regard Christmas shopping as a ‘necessary evil’ according to Shutl.
Sunday trading for Royal Mail
Royal Mail will open a total of 225 delivery offices on Sunday throughout December to help with the Christmas rush and to offer more convenience to customers picking up parcels.
An additional 125 of the busiest delivery offices with the highest parcel volumes across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will open during the four weeks in December in the run up to Christmas Day. They will complement around 100 offices already open on Sundays all year round.
There will also be a range of extended opening hours from Mondays to Saturdays for Christmas in around 1,200 delivery offices across the UK. Christmas opening hour details are available in each delivery office.
