Logistics

Online-only supermarket Picnic will start picking up returns from online shoppers. The Dutch grocer has partnered with logistics company DHL to handle the process.

Loop, a sustainable ecommerce service, will launch in the United Kingdom later this month. The service, which puts products in containers that are designed to be reused, will be made available to 5,000 early adopters from 26 March.

Logistics company Hermes has launched a pilot project, called PaketFuxx, in which consumers who regularly accept parcels for neighbors are paid 30 cents per package. Hermes will also pay this money if the goods are delivered by another company.

Deutsche Post and DHL Paket have announced a variety of new digital services and improvements of existing solutions, which should make the use of mail and parcel services easier and more transparent. The new services include letter tracking, pictures of envelops and a new Post & Paket 24/7 machine.

Ecommerce in the United Kingdom is still booming, with last year's sales up 11 percent on 2018. This growth is also driving the delivery business. But what is the current state of the UK ecommerce delivery market?

The first robotic parcel machines with integrated cold storage are launched in Finland. The service aims at customers wanting to pick up their online groceries. Currently, the machines are only active in two locations near Helsinki.

Abel & Cole, an organic food delivery service from the United Kingdom, has introduced Club Zero. This is a new service, claimed to be the first of its kind in the UK, which delivers groceries to consumers in returnable, refillable packaging. No more single-use packaging.

Ecommerce continues to drive growth for PostNord. The Swedish logistics group delivered just over 50 million parcels in the fourth quarter of 2019. And for the full year, B2C volumes increased by 10 percent compared to the year before.

About three out of four Polish consumers see environmentally-unfriendly behavior of sellers when they are shopping online. Among this behavior is the use of film for packing shipments, packing food products in plastic bags and packing small products in too large packages with fillers.

Zalando has opened a new fulfilment center. Its latest distribution center is located in Italy, in Nogorole Rocco, near Verona. The site will serve customers in Southern Europe.

UPS has announced a range of plug-ins, that allows users of Magento, WooCommerce, PrestaShop and OpenCart to add its services to their ecommerce websites. The plug-ins are part of the recently announced UPS Digital Access Program.

Croatian Post has successfully completed its very first drone delivery. In about twelve minutes, the autonomous device flew from the Port of Gaženica to Preko at a speed of 35 kilometers per hour. The flight was part of a pilot project.

Posten Norge has started a pilot project in Oslo with 100 parcel lockers across the city. The test is meant to provide insight for the further rollout of a new parcel locker network in Norway.

Parcel and express transport provider GLS Spain has integrated a large number of Pudo, Hapiick and PDN360 terminals into its network. Now, the number of automated lockers than can be used by GLS in Spain amounts to over 200.

Consumers in the Netherlands have the dubious honor to be the ones that send most online purchases back. Again. In the Netherlands, there's a return rate of 13 percent, which is more than in countries such as Germany, Poland and Switzerland.