Germany’s Biggest Parcel Carrier Demands A Price Hike

Germany’s biggest parcel carrier DPD has demanded a price hike for the delivery of parcels throughout Germany and have taken it upon themselves to increase prices by 3.5 % across the range of their deliveries and they want the rest of the parcel carriers to follow suit. They argue that the present system promotes a something for nothing culture and that this will destroy part of the business. This culture unfortunately comes from many of the large Internet retailers selling on a postage free basis. Unfortunately the business has got used to this system and it will be difficult to change the process. There is a lot of competition in the market place for parcel deliveries and the good carrier will ship to places like Germany at very low prices, the reason that they are able to compete so readily with the very large companies is that they tend to use a network of local carriers that do not have the large overheads of the major carriers.

There will have to be a balance as the major carriers do work with the smaller parcel carriers and in many cases there is a very happy liaison between the two parties. Germany has a major problem in that it would appear that road tolls are about to rise significantly again and this will naturally increase the cost base of the parcel delivery. The other problem is that all the parcel companies have spent and are still spending vast amounts of money on getting there service right as the customer demands an ever improving delivery service. There is a definite move to get parcel delivery windows to a much lower level. In many cases now the delivery window can be 3 to 4 hours but it is likely to come down to approximately one hour. This is almost being forced on the industry by the numerous new systems of locker parcel shops and supermarket drop points.

The good worldwide parcel service will always do a good job and it is worthwhile examining the website of a good parcel carrier as they are virtually unable and have little interest in getting into the large political arena but that has the enormous advantage of being able to quote immediately for the best service available at the time. Parcel prices to Germany are good at present and although there may be small movements it should still be possible to do a good deal.