The “Online marketplace is an opportunity for us,” says DHL annual report as the supplier aims to tap into the marketplaces field by expanding their parcel network.
The German logistics company say that the B2C market is experiencing strong growth, particularly due to the continued upward trend in digital retail space. This has created a high growth potential for domestic and international parcel businesses.
DHL and online marketplaces
DHL say that they have expanded their cross-border portfolio of ecommerce services during the year to help marketplace merchants serve local and overseas customers.
In Europe, DHL’s B2C network amounts to a total of 27 countries, including Germany. There are more than 65,000 acceptance and drop-ship points available to their seller customers in Europe. In the United States, the supplier offer “especially fast delivery” in five metropolitan areas.
In India, their Blue Dart subsidiary delivers to almost every all available postcodes and has opened an additional 970 points of sale.
The carrier’s network in South Asia includes more than 2,000 locations where online merchants can post parcels. This means that if merchants wish to tap into international markets and juggle their local trade they have a opportunity to do so by leveraging the group’s network of solutions.
DHL CEO on 2018 as a challenging year
According to DHL annual report the supplier’s revenue ended on €61, 550 (£52,674) in 2018. That’s up from €60,444 (£51,727) in 2017. The proportion of revenue generated abroad fell slightly from 69.6% to 69.5%. The group’s operating profit from activities (EBIT) also fell by 15% to €3.2bn (£2.74).
“2018 was a challenging year for Deutsche Post DHL Group, which we closed with a successful Christmas business. Despite rising geopolitical uncertainties, global trade continued to register growth. This benefitted our DHL divisions in particular. In our German post and parcel business, we initiated measures to secure the division’s long-term EBIT growth – and we consciously accept that this comes with a short-term burden on EBIT…We have thus created the conditions for reaching our 2020 targets and for continuing to grow profitably in the years thereafter.”
– Frank Appel, chief executive officer, Deutsche Post DHL Group
One Response
DHL is indeed pursuing this with great aggression. Recently, we have seen a sudden rise in initiatives(from the DHL team) like interaction with Shipping software providers like us. They are harnessing e-commerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce in a focussed manner and collaborating with third party shipping companies like StorePep, Shipstation, StarshipIt, etc. At this point, they seem to far ahead of the race than FedEx or UPS on this aspect.