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Parcel lockers, changing regular delivery preferences and chatting with the delivery driver during his rounds. PostNL sees that consumers no longer want to receive their packages at home by default.

Currently, 92 percent of e-commerce orders are delivered to someone's doorstep. But that is changing. "We see a trend toward more 'out of home,'" CEO Herna Verhagen told Webwinkel Vakdagen. Yesterday in Utrecht, she was one of the main speakers.

Consumers want to be able to choose where and when they receive their package. Sometimes this is on a different day, other times the order has to go to a different address and yet another time to a parcel locker.

"Providing for this is also really necessary, because it determines customer satisfaction." In turn, the availability of parcel lockers determines a low-threshold return process. As a result, consumers no longer necessarily have to go to a PostNL point or store to return something.

Yesterday, PostNL announced that it is therefore opening up its network of parcel lockers, of which there are nearly a thousand, to third parties. GLS is the first, but more will follow. The more logistics parties follow suit, the more stores can include the parcel lockers in their delivery and return flows.

It is not known whether "interoperability" is being discussed with other locker networks.

For PostNL, the app is the central vehicle to the end consumer. According to the CEO, nine million unique profiles have been registered for the Android and iOS apps. Users can already enter their shipping preferences there, even if hidden deep in the interface, and see if and what letterbox mail is on its way.

What does not yet exist is real-time chat with the driver via a feedback button. Integrating real-time data is on the parcel company's wish list, though.

A deeper vision on the strategic role of the app, with millions of users, active or not, was not expressed by the top woman in the Jaarbeurs.

© The Content Exchange, source News