Decide when and where to send and collect parcels
8 November 2012 at 10:45 CET – The Hague – PostNL has introduced the parcel locker in Almere. Today, the Mayor of Almere, Annemarie Jorritsma, will be the first person to use the automated parcel locker in the main hall at Almere Central Station. This new service provides a solution for consumers who are not at home during the day. With the parcel locker, they can collect or send parcels, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, fast, safely and at no extra charge.
Customer wants to influence parcel receipt
Research has shown that, partly due to the continuing growth of e-commerce, consumers want to have more influence on when and where a parcel is delivered. 12% of online customers prefer to collect a parcel from a collection point*.
Gerrit Mastenbroek, general manager PostNL Pakketten: “By introducing the parcel locker, PostNL is further expanding the consumer’s delivery choices. Many people are busy and aren’t at home much during the day. What a nice idea to know that you can pass by the parcel locker on your way home from work and pick up your delivery. That makes buying online even easier.”
Decide time and place
The locker box is easy to use. If the customer is not at home when a parcel is delivered, a note is posted through the letterbox. Via PostNL’s MijnPakket, the customer has until 10.00 p.m. to change the delivery address and/or time. Besides the desired time, the customer can also choose for delivery at home, at work, at a Post Office and now in Almere for delivery to the parcel locker. As soon as the parcel is ready for collection in the locker box, the customer receives a text message with a unique access code. With this code and their own mobile telephone number, they can collect their parcel immediately from the parcel locker. They can also use the parcel locker to send a parcel. In that case, the customer simply stamps the parcel online using onlineverzendservice.nl.
Trial in Almere
Annemarie Jorritsma, Mayor of Almere: “In Almere, many people shop online. In fact, Almere was even designated Online Shopping City 2011 by PostNL. So the parcel locker is a welcome development. This is a test case for PostNL and we’re very happy to be the guinea pigs. Now we can decide when and where to collect our parcels.”
Over the next three months, PostNL will be trialling the locker box in Almere. The locker boxes are located in three test locations which are very easily accessible 24/7: in the main hall at Almere Central Station, at the Esso filling station at Markerkant 10-01 and at Transistorstraat 141 near the PostNL Business Point. PostNL is using the test to see whether and at what location(s) the consumer would like to see locker boxes installed. The further rollout of the locker box depends on the test results in Almere. PostNL chose Almere because of the volume of online shopping which is done here and because the residents of this commuter town tend not to be at home during the day to take delivery of a parcel. A great deal of support for the locker box is therefore expected in Almere.
* Source: Thuiswinkel Markt Monitor I – 2012
About PostNL
PostNL processes 8.7 billion addressed postal items (including 106 million parcels) each year and delivers to addresses in the Benelux, Germany, the UK and Italy. PostNL’s main business is mail, parcels and e-commerce. The company also provides services in the area of data and document management, direct marketing and fulfilment. PostNL employs some 65,500 people. In 2011 the company generated a turnover of nearly 4.3 billion euros.
