According to the company, this concerns “a very limited percentage of the total number of parcels that bpost distributes every day”. According to a press release, the measure will apply for “a few weeks”. From tomorrow, Bpost will also work together with Decathlon. Some of those stores will be used as a collection point.
“We understand that this solution requires an extra effort from the consumer, but I am convinced that this is a solid alternative that enables end customers to receive their parcel on time,” says CEO Jean-Paul Van Avermaet in a response. .
The peak at the parcels comes as no surprise. Due to the lockdown, many shops have been forced to close and can therefore only sell via the internet. In addition, there are many shopping moments around this time of the year, such as Black Friday next week – where many discounts are traditionally awarded -, Sinterklaas and the traditional end-of-year period. Even if it is questionable whether Black Friday will continue at all.
Spokeswoman Veerle Van Mierlo notes that agreements have been made with major customers about volumes to be treated. “We had tailored our operations to those expectations, but orders are already higher than expected at all major web shops. And on top of that, there is also an increase among SMEs.” This means a lot of pressure on bpost’s organization. “We are indeed stretching hard. There may be delays,” the spokeswoman acknowledged.
Business customers pay an additional surcharge of 1 euro per package from the end of next week (Black Friday) until December 24 (Christmas Eve). According to the spokeswoman, this was already recorded during the discussion of the contracts last year. Private individuals do not pay that surcharge.
According to unionist Jean-Pierre Nyns (ACOD), the company flirts with its maximum capacity. The pressure on staff is enormous, he says, also because the corona pandemic is forcing more people to stay at home, sick or in quarantine. It had been agreed with the unions to make 2,700 additional recruitments and, according to Nyns, the first 500 of these have actually started this week. According to him, the search for additional staff is going smoothly, partly due to the corona crisis.
The company has also taken a number of measures to cope with the extra crowds. For example, in some regions more than one presentation takes place per day. According to the spokeswoman, management is also helping, not only for sorting but also for transport, for example. “That is not the first time, it happened in the past as well”, it sounds.
It remains to be seen whether the parcels will peak further towards the end of the year. Nyns hopes that a lot of people may have opted for certainty by ordering now, which would make things quieter again in the following weeks. Many web shops also called for timely ordering, because delays had to be taken into account.
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