Bpost launches package vending machines

Belgian bpost had a scoop on the E-shop Expo: they launched the 'package vending machine'. In the coming year, the company wants to install 150 to 200 'package vending machines in high-traffic locations. In September, a pilot project starts at the airport of Zaventem and the Brouckèreplein in Brussels.

Bpost wil het omzetaandeel van e-commerce voor pakjesdivisie Taxipost vergroten. Bpost wants to increase the revenue share of the e-commerce division of Taxipost. Currently Taxipost gets 35 percent of its revenue from packages ordered online. Bpost wants to increase this number to 50 to 60 percent, reports De Standaard.

E-commerce lags behind
In the Flemish newspaper Frank Jahn, Director Parcels & Express at bpost business, notes that e-commerce in Belgium still lags behind compared to for example the Netherlands. Bpost therefore want to set up an additional delivery channel next to the current home delivery and delivery to one of its eleven hundred collection points for web orders.

Next year the postal service will place up to two hundred parcel vending machines in public places. Coming September a trial will start at airport Zaventem and the Brouckèreplein in Brussels. In de automaten, vijf meter breed en twee meter hoog, passen tachtig tot honderd pakjes die via een unieke code kunnen worden opgehaald door shoppers. The vending machines, five meters wide and two meters high, fit eighty to one hundred parcels that can be collected by means of a unique code.

Source: Twinkle Magazine