20 november 2020
15:48
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Bpost will no longer be able to deliver all parcels to your home. Some of the customers have to collect. The rates for business customers are also going up.
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Bpost intervenes on Friday, now that the parcel record at the company breaks records day after day. The company can no longer guarantee home delivery for all parcels. Some of the customers have to pick up their parcel at one of the 2,300 collection points in Bpost’s own network. It also signs a temporary partnership with Decathlon, which uses its stores as a collection point. It concerns a minimal share, claims Bpost: 95 percent could still be done by normal means. Which parcels have to be collected depends on the influx per region, the company says. The affected customers will receive an email.
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The busiest period ever has started for the parcel department of Bpost. Non-essential stores that are closed are trying to sell their wares online. But also the well-known shopping day Black Friday (next Friday) and Sinterklaas present themselves. In recent days, Bpost has already delivered more than half a million parcels a day. The expectation is that in the week between Black Friday and Sinterklaas the milestone of 600,000 parcels per day will be shattered.
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From next Friday until Christmas Eve, business customers who have a contract for the distribution of parcels must pay an end-of-year surcharge of 1 euro per parcel.
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The government will enter into talks with the major digital platforms, such as Bol.com and Amazon, to postpone Black Friday. Not so much because of the pressure at Bpost, but because of the competitive disadvantage for the local non-essential stores that are closed due to the lockdown. Black Friday normally attracts full shopping streets. France previously decided to postpone the day of sales.
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Tariff increase
Bpost calculates to keep on top of the parcel flood. From next Friday until Christmas Eve, business customers who have a contract for the distribution of parcels must pay an end-of-year surcharge of 1 euro per parcel. This increase in shipping rates does not apply to ordinary, residential customers who want to have a parcel delivered.
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According to Bpost, the temporary price increase is not unexpected. It has already been announced last September. ‘A price adjustment is always recorded and communicated before the start of the new year’, says Bpost spokeswoman Barbara Van Speybroeck. It is the first time that traders or companies have to cough up the surcharge, but according to Bpost such a surcharge is common in the sector.
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During the first lockdown, companies already had to do a temporary ‘crisis allowance’ pay, from 25 cents per package. Bpost was suddenly confronted with a peak in parcels that it normally only knows during the end-of-year period. The big difference at the time was that staff members also dropped out due to illness and quarantine and that extra security measures had to be taken into account because of the pandemic.
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