Gusts Muzikants, a member of the board of Omniva Group, said that the results of nine months of operations show that this year will be successful for the company with almost 400 parcel machines in Latvia and 1,300 in the Baltics.
"We have increased the number of shipments, more than 7 million in Latvia - 21% compared to last year, I think this is also our investment in infrastructure, in the development of parcel machines, we are still developing it. Of course, the biggest investment this year was €42 million - a new logistics sorting center in Kaunas, which helps deliver parcels to customers faster," said Muzikants.
This year, Latvian Postal Service's network of parcel machines has also grown rapidly - at the beginning of the year, there were 250 parcel machines across Latvia, but now there are 413. Jānis Kūliņš, a member of the company's Management Board, said that traditional postal services, including letter posting, continue to decline, but the number of parcel post items by October has already exceeded the previous year's results by 50%.
"This year we have started cooperation with the Lithuanian post office network and from December people will be able to send parcels by parcel post also to Estonia and Lithuania, and in total there will be more than 1000 parcels in this network."
The network is planned to expand, but a rapid growth is not expected anymore, as the network is optimal at the moment, Kūliņš admitted: "The end of the year is the time when we process the largest number of items. This is due to the Black Friday sales in November and, of course, the start of the festive season. We forecast that the number of parcels in the parcel network could increase by 50%, say, over the Christmas period."
Latvia's largest express delivery service provider DPD Latvija is owned by Geopost, a company registered in France. Jānis Grants, Chairman of the Board of DPD Latvija, said that competition in the parcel industry is growing and that the volume of parcels has also increased by 20% this year.
Muzikants from Omniva Group assessed that competition puts pressure on service prices, but costs have also been rising in recent years.
"Fuel, electricity, labor costs are going up. Price is of course important, but the most important thing in our industry is how close or convenient it is for the customer to receive the packages. In general, the network of parcel machines in the Baltics and Latvia is already quite extensive, but we can deliver parcels even more conveniently," said Muzikants.
Representatives of parcel post networks urged that gifts should be sent in time to reach the recipients by Christmas.
