Justas Šablinskas, CEO of Venipak, shares his parcel market forecasts. Due to changes in consumer behavior, this year’s peak holiday season will start one month earlier, and the volume of parcels will be 40-50% higher than last year’s.
Data from this summer suggests that the load on both e-shops and parcel delivery companies during the holiday season will be even higher and will exceed last year’s peak by 40-50 percent.
According to the Kog Institute study, commissioned by Venipak and conducted in August this year, up to 45% of Lithuanians shop online at least once a month. According to the research, the most common purchases are clothing, cosmetics, household, and animal care products. The most popular delivery method is parcel lockers, with 51% of the population using them monthly. Justas Šablinskas says that these numbers will rise sharply during the Holidays.
“We noticed that the businesses are already changing the range of goods in their e-shops, while the quantities of parcels are gradually growing, with toys, various gifts, and souvenirs appearing among them. Customers are trying to avoid pre-holiday stress, so it is no surprise that festive shopping is starting earlier this year. We believe that as a result, our delivery volumes will be up to 50% higher than usual,” says Šablinskas.
According to CNBC, global online sales are projected to grow by at least 7% in November and December 2021, compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile, various challenges, such as labor shortages will extend delivery times and cause delays.
“We always prepare for every possible scenario, and we will try to ensure the shipments arrive on time. Last year has shown that as the holiday season approaches, the most important task for logistics companies is capacity planning and proper allocation of resources. Throughout the summer, we were making plans on how to make deliveries without delays, even when the volume of shipments will increase significantly,” says the CEO.
The parcel service is currently installing new contactless parcel lockers throughout Lithuania. Venipak plans to have 190 operating lockers in the country by Black Friday and 250 by the end of the year. To deal with the increasing loads, the company is also hiring 200 employees and plans to introduce 80 new delivery vehicles.
