At a time when e‑commerce is exploding, the goods transport sector is forced to evolve to include new efficient and eco-responsible practices.
Focus on these new trends and the challenges facing parcel delivery services today.
The rise of e‑commerce: more consumers, more packages, more deliveries.
With average annual growth of more than 10% and a turnover generated in 2019 of €92 billion, e-commerce is becoming a mode of consumption increasingly popular with consumers (market share of 9.1% in retail). In France). The consequence on the volume of packages to be delivered is major. Thus, while in 2017, 505 million packages were delivered, it is estimated that in the coming years this number should increase to 1 billion in France. In addition, this growth is accompanied by new demands from consumers who favor home deliveries in 86% of cases. Transport logistics are therefore completely modified: on the one hand by the increasing volume of demands to which they must respond and on the other hand by the modification of the latter, which requires an increase in the number of journeys which are now made almost from door to door. door.
Parcel delivery to the detriment of the quality of our urban spaces
3.0 purchasing habits have profoundly transformed goods delivery logistics. Indeed, the number of carrier journeys has increased to meet the new challenges of our consumer society. However, this is not without impact on our environment: pollution, congestion in urban spaces, omnipresence of traffic noise... Heavy counterparts which significantly reduce the quality of life in urban areas. Indeed, for residents of the latter, parcel deliveries account for 10 to 20% of traffic, and contribute on average 50% to congestion in their city. Faced with this observation, public authorities are implementing policies aimed at supporting the ecological transition of cities. Systems such as EcoQuartier, EcoCité, or the “plan to promote nature in the city” are pushing the goods transport sector to transform quickly to allow everyone to find cities where it is easy to breathe.
Innovation at the service of our quality of life
To respond to the problems raised by the constant increase in delivery rounds, major players and new start-ups are joining forces. Together, they build eco-responsible, innovative and clever solutions to limit the harmful consequences of growing e-commerce. Among these disruptions:
- The pooling of warehouses and services (imagined by Urby) to ensure optimal efficiency of journeys made by carriers (100% loading, optimized journeys, handling of parcel returns).
- The creation of urban micro warehouses (thanks to La Poste) to carry out the last kilometers of deliveries with eco-responsible, silent and less polluting means of transport (by electric car, by bicycle or on foot with tracking robots).
- New on-demand delivery services (such as Stuart or MisterPasha) which offer staggered times for grouped deliveries in order to match customer availability and reduce the number of single deliveries.
- The development of autonomous delivery robots (by the Estonian start-up Starship Technologies) tested in Düsseldorf and Hamburg.
Boks is part of its new projects poised to revolutionize parcel delivery. By making available, in buildings And private housing , connected parcel boxes, the Boks solution ensures the delivery of parcels regardless of the customer's schedule or availability, from the first visit. Thanks to this, the number of delivery attempts is drastically reduced. Online shoppers, for their part, benefit from parcel collection in complete freedom, at home, at a time that suits them.
The years to come promise to be a source of numerous innovations which will continue to transform our vision of delivery services.
The latter must succeed in combining quality of service and consideration of ecological impacts.
