The sky-high inflation rate in the Netherlands has left PostNL in a bind. As a result, we can expect to wave goodbye to free and cheap deliveries. 😭
Up until this point, Nederlanders have been a pretty spoiled bunch when it comes to having packages delivered for free or at a low cost by PostNL.
However, this is all bound to change as the company has had to deal with a whole lot of soaring expenses, including:
- An increase in gas prices for delivery vans,
- a growing bill for the electricity that keeps distribution centres running,
- consumers spending less due to the high inflation rate,
- and wage increases to stay ahead of the Dutch labour crisis.
It was necessary to keep moving
According to the financial chief of PostNL, Pim Berendsen, the operating costs at PostNL are twice as high as normal. This has left the company in quite the pickle — and upping their parcel delivery costs is necessary to keep them afloat.
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“Despite all our austerity measures, €50 million remains. We cannot compensate for this ourselves by cutting back or improving our productivity. That is such a large amount, for which we have to pass our prices on to business customers”, Berendsen tells AD.
Parcel drop-off points might become the new normal
An e-marketing professor at Erasmus University, Cor Molenaar, believes that, if expenses continue to rise, other parcel delivery services will soon follow — leaving us with fewer possibilities to get our packages delivered for free.
He also predicts that we’ll be seeing slimmer chances of our packages being delivered to our doors.
READ MORE | Inflation in the Netherlands jumps to almost 12%: here’s what you’ll pay more for
“We are moving towards a model in which parcels are delivered to a central point in the district and where the customer picks them up there or has them delivered to their home at an extra cost”, Molenaar tells AD.
However, PostNL shares that they will continue to persevere and work towards being the favourite deliverer for consumers across the Netherlands.
The company believes that it will soon see structural growth in the number of e-commerce customers in the coming years.
What do you think about PostNL increasing its parcel delivery prices? Tell us in the comments below! 👇
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