Testing goods at branches

The sales managers of DPD - Ondřej Vaňha and Uloženky - Karel Pěnka agreed that testing goods at branches is uneconomical and time-consuming, and we asked them for a short interview about the progress of this season. You can read about how Uloženka and DPD prepared for it and what their next plans are in our interview.

What news can your e-shops use this Christmas season?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: A major innovation that we launched before the season is the new DPD ParcelShop service, which we are expanding our services with a network of collection points. At the moment, we have a network of more than 80 professional dispensing points throughout the Czech Republic. We are preparing other interesting news for the beginning of next year. In general, we do not enter the Christmas season directly with any news. During this period, we devote all our efforts to follow up on the previous successful years and deliver all shipments that e-shops entrust to us.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: This year, we have been preparing for the Christmas season since March of this year. We opened other branches - České Budějovice, Ústí nad Labem, Prague 7, Zlín and moved some branches to larger premises. We now have a central warehouse with 2,500 pallet spaces in the logistics park on Rudná. We have strengthened our team with supervisors, operations managers, sales assistants, expanded our own vehicle fleet and are currently expanding our professional call centers. The new branches are already designed with 2 entrances, one for delivery and the other entrance for submitting e-shop shipments with a minimum area of 200m2. At the main branches in Prague and Brno there is a two-shift operation, staff reinforcement including self-service payment terminals and a new internal system for faster delivery of shipments. On the last weekend before Christmas, all our branches will be open as a normal working day, including Sunday of course.

How many e-shops do you currently cooperate with? What percentage of them only use you around Christmas? 

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: Uloženka currently cooperates with 4,200 e-shops. If the e-shop implements us in their own system, they use us all year round. Originally, we were mainly focused on small and medium-sized e-shops. As all e-sellers could see for themselves, the trend of personal subscriptions continues to grow, so our partners are also large e-commerce stores such as Bonami, Alensa, Nakupka, Brands Diffusion, and many others are reporting cooperation.

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: Today, we serve several thousand e-shops, from the point of view of sales, it is more than half of the retail market. Among them are the biggest players such as Mall.cz, Alza.cz and Kasa.cz. Customers who use DPD cooperate with us all year round, and I do not see a significant increase in "one-time" customers during the Christmas period.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: "The storage capacity is unlimited."

How many shipments can you handle - daily, weekly, monthly?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: Thanks to an efficient network of transshipment points and a sophisticated system of working with transport capacity, our system is essentially not limited. The proof of this can be the pre-Christmas period, when we deliver twice as many shipments as on other days of the year.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: We process an average of 60,000 per month. shipment. In the main Christmas season, it is 150-200 thousand. shipments per month. The capacity of Uloženka is adjusted to approx. 300,000, but if we see that the branch will be insufficient in a few weeks, we will immediately find a suitable, larger space and move the branch. So the storage capacity is unlimited.

How long have you been preparing for this Christmas season?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: Preparation for Christmas already starts during the summer holidays. Of course, everything starts with a discussion with our customers and their prediction of Christmas sales. Subsequently, scenarios and various meteorological models that may occur are being prepared, followed by appropriate measures. In the long term, regardless of Christmas, we work with the capacity of transshipment points, backbone lines and, last but not least, with end couriers. This activity takes place over a period of several years, because you simply cannot build a depot in a few months.

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: "E-shops already perceive the quality of the carrier - every shipment sold but not delivered is their lost profit."

Do you see any trends in the behavior of customers, whether end customers or e-shops? Who do you primarily see as your customer?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: We value any individual who uses our services, be it a sender or receiver. That is also why we are the only ones who actively and systematically determine satisfaction with our services. Of course, we work with each customer in a different way, we choose a different form of care and communication. In general, we perceive the behavior of our customers as relatively conservative. This was confirmed to us when we introduced innovations such as evening delivery or cash on delivery payment by card. At the moment, we are also examining reactions to the Saturday delivery offer. However, even so, certain trends can be observed, when senders slowly begin to perceive the quality of the carrier and realize that every shipment that was sold on the e-shop and not delivered represents a considerable lost profit. Among the recipients, we observe an increasing degree of involvement in the life cycle of the shipment - they are increasingly redirecting shipments to other addresses or choosing alternative delivery dates.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: The trend of our customer is clear. Customers use our website and the section of connected e-shops more and more often https://www.ulozenka.cz/zapojene-eshopy or the Heureka point and Aukro point services, where they choose, for example, a phone from one e-shop, a book from another and perfume from a third. He knows very well that each of our partners offers our services, and this is a great saving for him in terms of money for transport and time when picking up parcels. If, on average, a customer has to choose 3x for transport through us 3x 49CZK = 147CZK or via another carrier 3x 150CZK = 450CZK, the 99% is the clear choice - Uloženka. The number of these customers continues to grow. We currently have an average of 20% customers who combine shipments from our partners to one place. Our branches are visited by both regular e-commerce customers and students, mothers with children, fathers on the run 🙂 - as my colleague says, but also seniors. Our services are also used by street customers instead of the post office, i.e. without registration. Yes, we also offer this and at interesting prices, see https://www.ulozenka.cz/cenik/cenik-pro-jednorazova-podani.

What can and cannot be sent through your collection points?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: If DPD ParcelShops (DPD collection points) are meant, then the only limit compared to standard delivery is the weight of the shipment, which can be a maximum of 20 kg.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: Through our personal collection network, the weight is limited to 15 kg with dimensions 80x60x42cm. As for courier delivery to a private address, where we mainly use the DPD partner, our partners have the option of sending parcels up to 50 kg. Customers who let us take care of their complete logistics www.e-skladek.cz, they have the option of using pallet transport, including oversized shipments.

How can I pay for shipments and what is the link to the client's accounting?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: At our collection points, you can pay in cash or by credit card, it depends on the specific branch. The use of the DPD ParcelShop service has two main positive effects on the customer's accounting. The customer can only have one "cash on delivery" for delivery or collection points, i.e. DPD. The second and non-negligible advantage is the guarantee of cash on delivery in the form of a large multinational service provider compared to "small" private entities.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: You can pay in cash or by card at all our branches. We have newly prepared self-service payment terminals for this season in Prague. The customer will be able to use cash payment, card payment or self-service at the self-service terminal.

Do you notice that personal subscriptions are more popular in some regions than others?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: Rather than regions and type of goods, the choice between delivery and personal collection is influenced by recipient preference. A slightly larger share of personal purchases can be observed for goods with a lower value.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: After three years of experience, we have clear data. The largest number of personal subscriptions – 40% – is made by Prague, together with Brno and Ostrava it is up to 90%. If the e-shop adds Uloženka to the shipping options, the average of personal deliveries is usually 33% or more, from the total orders of the e-shop. The e-shop already feels an increase in new customers after the first week of cooperation, sometimes by as much as 10%. After 3-4 months we get up to 25% increase. We are talking about new customers, not existing ones. The main factor of the increase is the lowest price for transport in the Czech Republic.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: "We will introduce the new service, which will largely replace the booths, after the New Year."

Are you not considering the possibility of trying on goods, for example for fashion e-shops?

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: We discussed delivery with product testing for quite some time with some fashion e-shops, such as ZOOT. However, we were unable to find a solution that would be comfortable for the recipient and, above all, economically viable.

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: Trying out goods at branches is an interesting idea at first glance, but as a result it is very uneconomical. In order to quickly serve a large number of customers, we need the check-in of an individual to take place in the shortest possible time. Furthermore, we are not able to assess what is happening in the cabin and thus bear the 100% warranty for the seller. Before Christmas, this option would require a considerable staffing of the branches and make the system considerably more expensive. We will introduce the new service, which will largely replace the cabins, after the New Year, but I will not disclose further details just yet. In the next period, Uloženek's priority will continue to provide professional services in the submission and issuing of shipments, i.e. such services that only 4-5 e-shops in the Czech Republic can afford independently.

How do you see the sa serviceme-day delivery? 

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: Interesting, it certainly has its place in the market. A few years ago, nobody discussed the day of delivery, today we are discussing same day. We'll see what we'll be talking about in a few years. Thanks to new technologies such as 3D printing, it can be just in time, or will it be the virtualization of goods in the form of a hologram?

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: We already offer this service to customers who use our complete logistics services on www.e-skladek.cz  For these partners, we are able to prepare the goods for personal collection at our Prague branches on the day of the order.

Ondřej Vaňha/DPD: "I estimate that no more than 500,000 shipments are transported daily during the season." 

Can you estimate how much is transported daily in the entire package market and through which channels?

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: Certainly, the largest part of the market is provided by Česká Pošta, PPL, DPD and, of course, Uloženka for personal collections :). We are still the only professional company on the Czech and Slovak market, with our own network of branches, our own transport and our own employees. The estimate would be very rough indeed, so I will leave the answer to this question, for example, to the statistical office 🙂

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: On average I estimate several hundred thousand, but not more than half a million shipments during the season.

How do you deal with shipping shipments abroad? For how many % of your clients?

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: From abroad, we only offer Slovakia so far. In the near future, we are planning to expand our services abroad in the EU at very interesting prices.

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD: DPD is the largest European provider of international parcel delivery. We have our own pan-European network, thanks to which we can reliably and quickly transport shipments anywhere in Europe and today even anywhere in the world. For the surrounding countries, which make up the majority of export shipments, we also deliver cash on delivery shipments.

What are the other plans for Luženka and DPD?

Karel Pěnka / Deposit: We would like to maintain exclusivity in the professional network of personal subscriptions at the most interesting price. We have several projects in progress that we are intensively working on. Among the things I can reveal now is the thickening of the network of our own branches in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and wider logistics for e-shops. Subsequently, at least another 100 collection points should be established in the Czech Republic and 30 in Slovakia.

Ondřej Vaňha / DPD:  DPD wants to continue delivering joy. We want to be the market leader, to bring our customers such innovations and services that will make them successful in their market and ensure their permanent growth. We will continue to help those in need and be environmentally friendly. I believe that everyone will find in our services what is close to them personally and professionally.

We asked:

Karel Pěnka – sales and marketing director of Uloženka.cz

Karel has been working at Uloženka since spring 2013, where he came from the shipping company DPD, where he worked as a Key Account Manager for VIP customers. He has been working in logistics for over 8 years. In Uloženka, he is in charge of the sales department and marketing. He brought a lot of positive changes to Uloženka, including proactive communication with customers, a new branch brand and many other interesting changes. To unwind, he uses fitness, hunting and, as he says with a smile, his girlfriend :). His words "a person should have his dreams and his goals, which he must pursue purposefully in order to achieve what he wants." In his case, the dream gradually becomes a reality :).