Gifts, tree decorations - or the Christmas tree itself: The Germans are ordering more and more online, especially during the Christmas season.
For this reason, many German parcel services are demanding surcharges for shipments during this period from online retailers and other commercial senders.
The higher number of parcels than the average for the year made the delivery considerably more expensive, said Peter Rey from the parcel service DPD. According to the spokesperson for business customers, the company usually charges around 75 cents more per parcel. The competitor UPS increases in the Christmas business according to own data in particular packages, which are particularly large or heavy.
Surcharges could be passed on to orderers
Also "Hermes" raised by the end of a so-called "peak surcharge," reported the "Wirtschaftswoche". This also applies to returns, the company said. The market leader, Deutsche Post DHL, on the other hand, wants to forego Christmas surcharges, although the average revenue per consignment has fallen in recent years.
Whether the end customers will feel something of the surcharges in online gift shopping, is uncertain. Because every dealer must decide for himself whether he passes on the markup of the parcel services to his customers or not. Perhaps the customers could also hear it indirectly about the pricing.
more on the subject
The constantly growing flood of shipments just at Christmas presents the parcel services for years before major challenges. Swiss Post expects to deliver around 11 million parcels per day on the busiest days before the festival this year. That's more than twice as many as on normal days. Most parcel services are therefore providing large amounts of temporary help. The postal service alone will employ about 10,000 extra workers before the party, competitor DPD around 4000.
