DHL and Posten Bring expand capacity for holiday parcels

By Elena Vasquez

Posten Bring’s new automated parcel terminal in Moss can handle more than 500,000 packages per day, while DHL plans to add more than 500 parcel lockers across Germany by year-end.

Both operators are expanding parcel capacity for an expected surge in packages and gift cards during the weeks before Christmas. For shippers, carriers and forwarders, the practical effect is more intake, sorting and delivery capacity during a compressed holiday window.

How is DHL expanding German capacity?

DHL’s Post & Parcel division, which does business as Deutsche Post, said Friday it will increase letter and parcel processing and delivery capacity, hire temporary staff and expand its parcel-station network. Christmas planning has been running for months.

Nikola Hagleitner, a Post & Parcel Germany board member, said:

“Flexibility is very important to many customers today. That’s why parcel lockers have become an integral part of everyday parcel delivery. They enable the sending and receiving of parcels regardless of opening hours and at the same time help us to efficiently manage increasing parcel volumes. This is a great advantage, especially in the run-up to Christmas.”

DHL’s German capacity package includes:

• More than 500 additional parcel lockers nationwide by year-end.
• More than 10,000 temporary workers this year, supporting a workforce of more than 150,000 employees in delivery, mail and parcel centers.
• Additional sorting capacity, about 9,500 separate delivery routes during the busiest weeks, and about 11,000 extra vehicles for sorting, transport and delivery of millions of letters and parcels.

The German plan gives retailers and e-commerce shippers more collection and drop-off points without relying only on staffed counters. For carriers, the temporary workers and vehicles convert additional sorting space into route and delivery capacity during the peak.

Customers across Germany can now access about 19,500 DHL Packstations, Poststations and partner-operated DeinFach automated lockers. Packstations are self-service systems for sending, receiving and dropping off parcels around the clock; Poststations are digital Deutsche Post retail outlets, while DeinFach sites use partner-operated automated lockers.

What is Posten Bring adding for Christmas?

Posten Bring, Norway’s state-owned postal services and logistics provider, runs Posten for private customers and Bring for business and cross-border e-commerce shipments. The group has installed hundreds more parcel lockers. A Friday company announcement said it had also established new locations and upgraded the size of 300 existing units this year, preparing for record holiday parcel volumes.

Demand already points in that direction. Posten said deliveries to its Pakkeboks lockers in Norway during August had broken last year’s Christmas record. From January through September, the number of parcels delivered to Pakkeboks increased by around 50% compared with the same period last year.

Posten asks consumers to collect parcels quickly because prompt pickup frees locker capacity for replenishment as millions of packages arrive over a short period. At popular locations, the company replenishes lockers several times each day.

Collection performance supports that operating model: more than nine out of 10 packages leave the lockers within four days, and the average collection time is 26.5 hours. Faster returns give the carrier more usable locker units without requiring an equivalent increase in physical locations.

Earlier this month, Posten Bring opened its largest parcel terminal, with automated sorting and daily capacity above 500,000 packages. The facility gives the carrier additional sorting headroom as Christmas parcel volumes build.

Located in Moss, five minutes from a major highway, the automated facility mainly handles imports from Sweden and Denmark, alongside local packages from Østfold. During heavy peaks, it will relieve Posten Bring’s logistics center in Oslo, the country’s main parcel-sorting terminal. Posten says the site has ample room for future growth.

Will the added capacity absorb Christmas demand?

For cross-border forwarders, the Moss terminal adds a Norwegian sorting point for parcel flows arriving from Sweden and Denmark, while the new locker network gives consumers more places to receive shipments. That added channel matters because Posten’s roughly 50% year-to-date locker growth suggests replenishment speed will be as important as physical capacity this Christmas.

For a North American benchmark, the U.S. Postal Service recently outlined its peak-season preparations and said it was hiring 10,000 temporary workers. If December volumes follow Posten’s record-volume expectation, the combined lockers, sorting slots, temporary workers, routes and vehicles will determine whether the two European networks absorb the pre-Christmas surge without service strain.