Zalando and Poste Italiane
Ian Kerr
Poste Italiane and online fashion retailer Zalando have extended their partnership to allow customers shopping at zalando.it to collect their purchases from post offices and the Punto Poste network.
The Punto Poste network consists of 350 parcel lockers, over 7,300 tobacconists, and 200 affiliated stores across the peninsula.
Already, Zalando customers could return their purchases via this network. This latest announcement means Poste Italiane’s full retail network - including 12,000 post offices - now behaves as a PUDO network for Zalando.
While Poste Italiane’s parcel locker network is modest, its network of almost 20,000 PUDO points is impressive and virtually impossible to beat.
Out-of-home delivery via this extensive PUDO network will result in carbon emissions savings for Zalando. The online fashion giant announced recently that it will reduce its operational carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2025.
"We want to offer more flexibility for our customers to open the fashion wardrobe of Europe, Zalando, in the comfort of their home: decide what to get, when and where they want it, and when to pay for it.” - Riccardo Vola, Director Southern Europe and Gift Cards at Zalando
Italy is an important market for Zalando. Earlier this year it set up a new fulfilment centre near Verona to serve Italy and southern Europe.
The expanded deal with Zalando is an indicator of Poste Italiane’s broader strategy to grow its e-commerce parcels business. It is making its delivery offering more customer-centric, which has helped secure significant deals with Amazon.
"We are pleased to consolidate and expand our positive collaboration with Zalando. It is an important partnership that leverages Poste Italiane's strategy, which is aimed at improving services dedicated to online purchases through synergies with major players in Europe.” - Matteo Del Fante, CEO of Poste Italiane
According to Parcel Perform’s recent E-Commerce Delivery Report in Europe and the United Kingdom, the average Net Promoter Score (NPS) for the e-commerce post-purchase experience in Europe ranges from 49 to 74. Italy languishes in the bottom half with 58. In fact, Italy and Spain share the honour of having the most 1-3 star ratings. Most consumer complaints related to inaccurate transit time and missing or incorrect estimated delivery time/date notifications from carriers.
This illustrates why e-commerce merchants like Zalando are working with carriers such as Poste Italiane to improve the entire delivery experience for parcel recipients. There is scope to improve the customer experience to match the service levels offered to online shoppers in other European nations.
So it seems that there are winners all round: Zalando, Poste Italiane, and the customer.
“This is a good move by Zalando and Poste Italiane, giving Zalando’s Italian customers more delivery and return options. This should improve customer experience and will be a great opportunity for the Post to show what its network can do, provided the access points operate at good levels.” - Marek Różycki, managing partner, Last Mile Experts
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