Drive and capture e-commerce growth

While the e-commerce market across the Benelux remains strong, supported by stable economies, very high internet penetration, and excellent infrastructure, in 2023 parcel volumes were disrupted by a number of macroeconomic and socio-political factors. The war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East have affected lives in the region, and created wider social and financial uncertainty. High inflation and the rising cost of goods and labour have led to businesses and consumers cutting back on spending, while an overcapacity in the market creates pricing pressure.

While our focus remained on providing customers with solutions to further develop their e-commerce offerings, such as helping small businesses bring their goods online and supplying e-tailers with fulfilment solutions, the impact of the topics outlined above resulted in slowing e-commerce growth domestically.

Our cross-border volumes were higher, as consumers increasingly purchased lower-value goods from Asia. Internationally, our Cross Border Solutions (CBS) strives to be the cross-border accelerator for e-commerce logistics in, to and from Europe by building the best market propositions, optimised hubs, processes and applications, and a robust European network​.

To be future-proof in the cross-border ecosystem, we are developing our digital insights to tap into new growth opportunities and coordinate the supply chain. These growth opportunities include fulfilment capabilities in Europe to facilitate continuous growth and potential geographical expansion in Europe and Asia.

One part of our international offering is Spring, a global e-commerce solutions provider. In 2023, Spring saw good growth, driven by higher volumes from Asia. Going forward, we believe that new European consumer protection and customs regulations, such as the simplification of import processes​, could potentially change the way our Asian customers do business in Europe.

Deliver smart logistic solutions

From creating emission-free city distribution to providing businesses and consumers with convenient and flexible delivery options, smart logistics ensures customers’ goods are moved quickly, efficiently and sustainably from collection to delivery. We help customers and consumers by producing a convenient shopping experience, while developing and bringing new delivery options to the market. At the same time, further automation in our mail operations are aimed at increasing delivery quality and efficiency.

In 2023, we updated our Logistics solutions strategic focus, which we outline below, that aims to capitalise on new and existing market potential. As a consequence, we decided to reassess the strategic and financial value of minority shareholdings in a number of areas, including ending our involvement with Roamler Care. VersTrade Nederland ceased operations, we ended the commercial operations of JP Haarlem, which delivered and installed furniture, and sold Flora@Home.

Under this strategy, we will focus on four key target areas: Fulfilment, home & garden, health & secure, and night distribution. IT and digitalisation will sit at the heart of the new approach, enabling us to be more competitive by, for example, creating fast and seamless customer interaction.

Fulfilment

The e-fulfilment market continues to grow and e-tailers, especially smaller businesses, are looking for complete solutions, where their orders are processed and shipped accurately. Our fulfilment solution is focusing on flexible and efficient processes whilst providing a unique customer experience. We aim to target select markets, such as beauty & care and FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) fulfilment, while improving and differentiating our core services.

Home & garden

Business customers need a trustworthy partner that offers sustainable and innovative XL distribution solutions, while consumers want their goods delivered safely, sustainably, and on time. Our home & garden offering will tap into our long experience of transporting large and unwieldy goods, such as garden furniture, washing machines and bicycles, to provide sustainable solutions in this growing market.

Health & secure

Our focus is on being the distinctive leading health & secure logistics platform in the Benelux by focusing on quality, innovation, and digitally enabled solutions. Within the health sector, we aim to expand the transport of medicines, vaccines and medical devices through our specialised network, which offers temperature-controlled pick up and delivery. We see growth potential for our Pharma@Home offering, which delivers medicines from hospitals and pharmacies direct to patients at home. We continued to develop the Medical Drone Service proposition that we established with the ANWB, a Dutch traffic organisation. We now have 15 partners (hospitals and blood banks) paying a monthly subscription so that they are first in line to use the drone service when it is licensed by the state authorities. Once this happens, we will be able to begin flight operations to transport emergency medical orders between healthcare locations in the Netherlands. We are also focusing on the transportation of sensitive and higher value goods, such as passports, phones, jewellery, and exams.

PS Nachtdistributie

Our PS Nachtdistributie operation, which provides customers across the Benelux with overnight delivery, guaranteeing that their goods arrive before 7:00 am, continued to grow in 2023. We worked on expanding our customer base, including in the health sector, and finalised the integration of Aalberts Service, which we acquired in 2022. PS Nachtdistributie is a key player in the delivery chain for a number of large customers, including between dentists and dental laboratories, where we ensure that dental products are delivered to dental practices before they open for business in the morning. Going forward, we will continue to target growth opportunities within the health sector.