This year has brought doom and gloom to many. So no wonder people have turned to online shopping for comfort, entertainment, and of course, out of necessity due to lockdowns. The move to online shopping has accelerated due to the pandemic, and postal services worldwide have seen the effects of this first hand. Both Royal Mail & PostNL saw a rush in parcel deliveries due to the pandemic.
PostNL has generated more turnover in this third quarter than last year. Royal Mail reported a £139m increase in total revenue in the first five months of the pandemic outbreak.
Due to this shift to online purchasing, PostNL is seeing an increase of 16.8% in parcel deliveries than at the same time last year, with a 15% increase in the first 9 months due to the pandemic. This was also visible in the UK with parcel volumes between April and August, revealing an increase of 177m parcels.
PostNL expects to see a further increase of 60-70% more parcels for delivery with the holiday season not too far away. In the wake of this, Royal Mail has been pre-planning for a surge of parcels and has said they will hire 13,000 more temporary workers than normal for the Christmas shopping boom.
