Perhaps the postman will no longer ring twice, but he will also do it on Saturday and Sunday until the evening. This was announced by Poste Italiane, explaining that its 30 postmen will deliver parcels seven days a week, until 19 pm. Not only that: collections from "do-it-yourself" lockers in supermarkets and shopping centers, or at the shop below home.
Given the exponential growth of parcels to be delivered (4/5 million in 2015, 15 million in 2016 and 35 million in 2017), Poste launched the new distribution plan on 16 April. At the moment, the novelty is gradually spreading across the territory and will continue like this throughout this year and in 2019. The decisive push comes from e-commerce and in particular from the agreement with Amazon which made deliveries take off at the end of 2017 , with a trend that continued this year as well.
The parcel revolution is already operational in 71 of the 900 Poste delivery centres: to date it affects 500 municipalities and 10 regions and by June the first areas will be operational in all Italian regions. Genoa is in the lead with 3 out of 4 centers already working with the new model. Milan, Rome and Turin follow, but also Florence and Reggio Calabria.
The postmen will have to deliver parcels up to 5 kilos after the upgrade decided by the Gentiloni government with the 2018 Budget Law (until now the postman could only carry parcels up to 2 kg) and thanks to the union agreements reached with the postmen. In fact, it should be considered that 85% of the goods purchased online fall within the 5 kg weight range. Deliveries will therefore also arrive on weekends until a quarter to 8 in the evening. The aim is to increase first-time deliveries, as parcels continue to increase and there is little point in trying to deliver them all while the recipients are elsewhere.
For example, in the morning the postmen will concentrate more in neighborhoods where there are offices, while in the afternoon and above all they will work mainly in residential areas where nobody is at home during the day.
The project is part of the 5-year "Deliver 2022" plan launched at the end of February by CEO Matteo Del Fante, who considers it "one of the pillars" of his strategy: he aims for 50 million parcels delivered in 2018 to reach 100 million in 2022.
In the background, as we said, there is the collaboration with Amazon but also the competition with the e-commerce giant with its enormous market power and which ended up under the Agcom spotlight accused of carrying out mail through its subsidiary Amazon Logistics without however having the title. Hence the call to comply. The Post Office initiative therefore aims to regain the market but the battle has just begun.
