BackPickup Service ties up with DTDC subsidiary to enter India market
The services will be initially launched in 15 cities in 2015 and grow to 125 cities with 6,000 pickup points by the end of 2016
Premium
Bengaluru: France-based parcel pick-up and drop company Pickup Service, part of logistics firm GeoPost (Le Groupe La Poste), is set to enter the Indian market along with DotZot, a company under courier services company DTDC Express Ltd, for last-mile delivery services in e-commerce.
The partnership aims to bring 90% of the population in major e-commerce consumption centres within 15 minutes of a DTDC pick-up shop by the end of 2016. DTDC has a majority stake in DotZot, while GeoPost, the parent company of Pickup Services, has a 40% stake in DTDC.
The two will help set up PUDO (pick up and drop off) centres which will give online shoppers the option to collect their orders from offline centres located in convenient locations around homes and offices. The services will be initially launched in 15 cities in 2015 and grow to 125 cities with 6,000 pickup points by the end of 2016.
According to DotZot, for every ₹ 100 spent on e-tailing, ₹ 35 is spent on support services like warehousing, payment gateways and logistics, among others. For every purchase of ₹ 100, e-tailers incur a loss of ₹ 24 on books, ₹ 13 on mobiles and ₹ 8 on apparel.
DotZot said PUDOs can save up to 15% on last-mile delivery. DotZot delivers around 40,000 parcels a day while DTDC delivers around 500,000 parcels a day, according to Sanjiv Kathuria, CEO and co-founder of DotZot.
Earlier in October, courier firm Blue Dart Express Ltd introduced a locker service in Gurgaon’s Cyber Park to store parcels purchased online as the failure rates in delivering parcels were on the rise in e-commerce.
Diego Magdelenat, co-founder and CEO of Pickup Service, said that it has over 24,000 PUDOs in Europe. On locker services, he said there are only 150 lockers in France as this system is possible only in high parcel volume regions.
“We don’t believe in the idea of parcel lockers as it cannot fully cover a country like India," he said, adding that his firm will leverage DTDC’s vast network.
Logistics and delivery have become one of the biggest segments in the e-commerce space and are expected to reach a size of $300 billion in sales by 2030 from the existing $20 billion, according to a study by investment bank Goldman Sachs in May 2015.
E-commerce companies in India like Jabong (Global Fashion Group) and Amazon.in have experimented with the idea of picking up parcels from local grocery stores and petrol pumps to increase convenience and reduce the cost of last-mile delivery.
Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!
