Logistics

Belgian postal company Bpost is starting a trial today. Customers can hand over returns to the postman, instead of bringing the package to the post office. The trial will take two months and it is set to happen in several Belgian cities.

Cardboard boxes, plastic bags and padding: Dutch packages provide 87 million kilos shipping material per year. The majority ends up in the garbage bin. The waste stream of parcels has not been mapped before.

Last-mile delivery scale-up Budbee has doubled its revenue in 2021 compared to the year before. The past year the company made 80 million euros in turnover. In home country Sweden, Budbee’s market share even grew to 1 to 5 percent.

Amazon Logistics has won the top spot in MoneySavingExpert's (MSE) annual UK parcel delivery poll. It's the first time that Amazon Logistics is considered the best carrier by consumers in this poll. The company replaces last year's winner DPD Local.

The Nordic countries of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden were very early adopters of the internet and have a highly developed digital infrastructure. Online shopping is very common in the Nordics, yet research reveals that there is still growth potential in this region.

Parcel delivery service Instabox will enter Germany in early 2022. It's the Swedish company's latest expansion across Europe. The company is active in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and now also Germany.

SwipBox, the parcel locker company from Denmark, has had a good year. The number of lockers has tripled to 10 thousand. The amount of customers has also doubled in 2021, thanks to the pandemic boom in ecommerce as well as increased sales of their smart lockers, the company says.

Bol.com, the largest online store in the Netherlands and Belgium, is to acquire Dutch bicycle courier company Cycloon. With the takeover the online store wants to deliver more sustainably. Moreover, Bol.com will deliver its own parcels for the first time.

Amazon has received a record fine of 1.13 billion euros by Italian market authority AGCM. The ecommerce giant’s logistics service Fulfilment by Amazon has abused its market dominance and disadvantages competitors too greatly, according to the regulator.

European online retailer VidaXL has rebranded its dropshipping service to dropshippingXL. Since doing so, the company has grown its product range and logistics facilities. DropshippingXL now has plans to expand to more countries within Europe.

eBay has signed a partnership agreement with InPost, the Polish ecommerce delivery company. Sellers on eBay now get access to InPost's parcel lockers throughout the UK. The move will provide sellers with more flexible postal solutions.

Logistics company Whistl has acquired Relish, a product sampling specialist. For now, Relish will remain as a standalone brand. Thanks to the acquisition, Whistl can expand its range of channels available to customers.

Estonian tech company Feeport has launched its software platform x7trade in the Dutch market. Through the platform, imported bulk low-value B2C goods’ declarations can be automatically logged to EU Member States’ Customs IT systems. Feeport is eyeing further integrations with more states within the EU.

Chinese marketplace AliExpress has announced the launch of a new logistics solution. This enables the company to offer a 10-day delivery guarantee, significantly speeding up deliveries in Europe. The new streamlined network is expected to enhance AliExpress' cross-border ecosystem.

Printful, a printing and fulfilment service from Latvia, is opening a fulfilment center in the United Kingdom. The branch will be operational by the end of this year. The company also has plans for a new facility in Poland, amounting to a total of five European branches.