Last Mile Brief 02/02/2023: Bring looking to grow parcel shop network across Denmark

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In today's Last Mile Brief, we bring you news from the Danish parcel delivery sector, plus reports on Amazon being investigated by Poland’s competition and consumer watchdog, and an interesting White Paper suggesting an additional service that could be offered by postal operators.

Last Mile Experts

02.02.2023

Photo: Bring press materials

Today’s headline story: Bring looking to grow parcel shop network across Denmark

Following a “record-breaking” Christmas sales period, Bring says it wants to expand its parcel shop network across Denmark, with particular focus on North Jutland, East Fyn and Aalborg.

In a press release, Bring said it would be expanding its parcel shop network due to increased demand in more rural areas.

“We have experienced great growth in Denmark in recent years, and now we would like to enlarge our service across the country. We know that many appreciate the simplicity of picking up their parcels from a parcel shop, and at the same time being able to use the opportunity to shop for their last items on their shopping list. With this investment, we want to reduce the distance to the nearest parcel shop – so that as many Danes as possible can pick up their parcels locally, said Bjarne Lauritsen, Director of Operations at Bring.

Bring has not stated just how many parcel shops it plans to open, however.

Some reports in the Danish press have suggested that Bring’s move has been a reaction to PostNord’s recent announcement of 200 PUDO point closures at retail stores throughout Denmark.

Last week, Helle Nielsen, head of retail at PostNord Denmark, told Danish TV station TV2 Nord:

“During the corona pandemic and the lockdown in Denmark, we extraordinarily opened several hundred new delivery points due to the increase in parcels, but with the current economic slowdown, it is only natural that we adjust the number of delivery points again.”

Nielsen was also keen to emphasise that most of the PUDO points PostNord has closed of late have been in large cities:

“Although we are now closing around 200 delivery points, we still have around 4,500 delivery points spread across the country. We have more delivery points than we had at the end of 2019 – and the vast majority of the delivery points that have been terminated over the past few months are located in the big cities.”

Europe round up

Ottonomy.IO and Goggo have announced a partnership covering autonomous last-mile deliveries in Spain and elsewhere in Europe.
Poland’s competition and consumer watchdog is investigating Amazon over differences in estimated delivery times stated before and after orders are made.
Healistic, thought to be the UK’s first business-to-consumer pharmaceuticals delivery service, has raised £1 million from unnamed investors.
An Post has agreed to lease an additional floor at the Exo – Dublin’s tallest office building.
The UK press are continuing to gun for Evri. This report in the tabloid Sun newspaper allegedly contains photos of damaged parcels and filthy sanitary facilities at one of the company’s logistics facilities.
Swiss Post has said it will make deliveries to Zurich and Bern exclusively with electric vehicles.
Postnord’s final 2022 figures show sales totaled SEK 10,947 million.
Maersk has teamed up with Cozero to develop analytics tools to improve Green House Gas emissions visibility for international parcel deliveries in Europe.
Irish restaurants registered with Just Eat are being encouraged to buy seaweed-coated takeaway packaging from the platform.

North America round up

OneRail has announced its delivery fulfillment platform will be integrated with Trimble Maps.
Retailers like Kroger and Walmart are investing in both digital and physical infrastructure in order to maintain custom from online shoppers.
Uber-owned Drizly have announced a partnership with Gopuff to provide alcoholic drinks delivery.
Shippo, a shipping platform for e-commerce businesses, has announced that it is the first multi-carrier shipping company to receive a Platform Account from FedEx.
USPS is suspending its retail operations in North Texas during this week’s winter weather.
FedEx is rolling out a new system for evaluating its delivery contractors that rank them like Olympic medal winners.
Canada’s LoopX.ai has created an autonomous robot named GoosEx to deliver food all over the University of Waterloo campus.
New legislation in the US state of in Georgia is to ban third-party food companies from advertising non-existent connections with restaurants. It will also require such companies to enter into contracts with restaurants before picking up and delivering food from those facilities.
According to a recent report by Adroit Market Research, the global vegan meal kit delivery service market is expected to reach $62.3 billion (USD) by 2029.
A white paper by Canadian researchers has found that postal workers doing their rounds can boost the wellbeing of elderly residents by chatting at their doorstep and reporting any obvious visible health issues. It has even been claimed that such a service could be an additional source of revenue for Canada Post.

News from the rest of the world

Amazon has announced it grew its renewable energy capacity by 8.3GW through 133 new projects in 11 countries during 2022.
A report by Ipsos has found that usage of food delivery apps in the UAE spikes by as much as 20% during Ramadan.
Alipay+ has further strengthened its partnership with foodpanda in Malaysia.

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