Supermarkets stop parcel point, vending machine takes over | RTL News

In recent years, if you wanted to pick up or send a parcel from PostNL, you could not only go to post offices, but also to supermarkets. But many of these packaging points in supermarkets are disappearing.

As in Jumbo stores. Parcel counters are part of the service counter there, but as of July 1, tobacco sales are banned in supermarkets. “We see the function of the service counter in its current form as a tobacco point of sale changing.” He said Jumbo recently.

The service counters become service points, no longer located outside the cash register area, but at the self-checkout counters. But there’s less space there, so there’s no place to put packages, says Linda Rovers, a Jumbo spokeswoman.

Parcel machine is open 24 hours.

She doesn’t know how many Jumbo package points have now disappeared. By July 1, the service desk had already been replaced by a service point in about 70 of its 725 stores. Franchise locations, where the supermarket is not owned by Jumbo itself but by a local businessman, can keep the service desk and therefore the package point, according to Rovers.

The policy in our stores is clear: if the service counter disappears to make way for a service point, the parcel point disappears. In the long run, all service desks, and therefore parcel points, may disappear, says Rovers.

On some jumbo jets, a parcel locker replaces a parcel point, but that’s not always the case. Rovers says it depends on space available. Parcel points close when the supermarket closes. Sometimes that’s not until 10pm, but sometimes until 6pm. Parcel lockers are often open much longer, with many even open 24 hours a day.

“Package points are less profitable”

At Albert Heijn, the largest supermarket chain in our country, the PostNL parcel points will disappear when the stores are renovated, says spokesman Gijs Toxopius. Most Appie supermarkets no longer have PostNL parcel points, because Albert Heijn has been doing this for a few years.

In most areas of Albert Heinz, where the parcel point has disappeared, a parcel machine has been replaced.

Albert Heijn is discontinuing the parcel points because it was less profitable to use the space they occupied for that purpose, according to Toxopeus. Toxopeus says it would be more profitable for Albert Heijn to use those square meters in the store in a different way.

Franchisees can keep the package point.

At Plus, too, which had a market share of around 9.5 percent last year, service counters are essentially giving way to smaller service points. The ban on the sale of tobacco products means less space is needed, explains company spokeswoman Rianne van Beek.

As a result, there is less space for parcel points, meaning that around 250 supermarkets (roughly half of all stores) now have parcel machines. Many Plus supermarkets are owned by franchisees and they can also decide to have a service counter.

The smallest PostNL parcel lockers have space for 16 parcels, but a machine with lockers for 152 parcels will open at the Plus supermarket in Leiden, according to PostNL spokeswoman Tessa de Jong. This is also the largest available.

Already more than 1100 parcel lockers

PostNL now has a total of around 3,500 parcel points. In 2020, there were just over 3,900, so the number of points has decreased by around 10 percent in recent years.

The number of parcel lockers has increased. At the end of last year there were more than 900 of them, and they were opened at the end of April. The thousandin Jumbo supermarket. Now there are more than 1100.

Last year, PostNL was the largest player in the Netherlands in the national parcel market with a market share of 50 to 55 percent, according to a report. summary From the Consumer and Markets Authority.