DHL to focus on logistics for a future borderless ecommerce trade in the EU

According to Andrej Busch, CEO DHL Parcel Europe, online retailers just needed to be able to get a product or service to an online buyer and the only requirement was enough infrastructure to enable shipping.

As ecommerce evolved, he points out, the second step was scalable infrastructure. The shipping cost of an item had to be kept at a low rate in as much as to be still profitable to send it to a shopper, especially for the sale of consumer electronics online. Scalable infrastructure requires logistic density and delivery volume, which are features of more mature logistics networks.

As a last phase, Busch concludes, online fashion required a convenient return policy infrastructure solution. Customers who purchase fashion require cheap return of items that don’t fit or don’t meet their expectations, via solutions such as click-and-collect, or drop off and pick up points.

Busch envisages that logistics will head towards the solutions for FMCG and grocery retailers who ship perishable, chilled and cheap items. DHL already provides grocery e-retailers with solutions such as the multi-box, which is a recyclable box that keeps items chilled until a customer can come home. The box can then be left out for a DHL courier to retrieve.
Andrej Busch highlights that DHL already provides scalable, established logistics infrastructure in Germany and abroad, and offers a range of solutions tailored for different aspects of ecommerce. DHL’s agenda for the future is to further export its logistics solutions to other European countries.
The German logistics company is pooling existing European delivery networks (Benelux, Poland and Czech Republic) not just to introduce the infrastructure necessary for ecommerce, but as Andrej Busch emphasized, to seize on the chance to bring the idea of a united European Union market to life.

Busch points out that while there are no customs or tangible borders between EU member states, individual European countries still behave like islands. Cross-border shipping is still expensive and people tend to buy domestically.

The logistics company already announced that Parcel Shops/Pack stations will be expanded in 2014. Busch revealed that the goal was to set up 25 kiosks in the Netherlands and 15 in Italy, with further expansion planned for the coming years. Pack stations are one way to solve the problem of inconvenient returns (especially for fashion e-tailers) by providing a place for online shoppers to drop of unwanted items whenever is convenient for them.

DHL Parcel Europe provides international return solutions in more than 23 European countries and own delivery networks in Benelux, Poland and Czech Republic.