by Walther Ploos van Amstel
PostNL’s first-quarter 2026 figures are a wake-up call for everyone in e-commerce. Parcel volumes fell 7.1%. This is the new reality. The party is over. The years of double-digit e-commerce growth are behind us for the most part — yet the sector is still deep in denial. Five years have passed since the Covid boom …
Les Echos writes: “Amazon, Shein et les autres… Les livraisons de colis représentent déjà 20 % du trafic routier en Ile-de-France”. True or fake news? A new research note from L’Institut Paris Region puts a striking number on a trend most of us feel intuitively: 315 million parcels were delivered in Île-de-France in 2025, the result of …
Scroll through any academic journal on city logistics, and you will find the same framing: how do we scale out-of-home delivery systems to keep pace with the rapid growth of e-commerce? It is an important-sounding question. It is also, increasingly, the wrong one. The inconvenient truth is this: e-commerce is no longer growing the way …
Failed deliveries are one of the most stubborn headaches in urban logistics. The courier arrives, nobody’s home, and the whole costly cycle begins again: a second attempt, extra fuel, more emissions, and a frustrated customer. A new study published in Research in Transportation Economics (Escudero-Santana et al., 2026) takes a fresh angle on this problem: …
PostNL opened 2026 with a notable shift in its e-commerce operations: total parcel volume dropped 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. Yet the company made this choice deliberately. So what’s going on? Fewer parcels, but worth more Revenue from the e-commerce segment came in at €451 million, down from €473 million in Q1 …
Few logistics questions seem more mundane than where to put a parcel locker. Research papers in Urban Logistics Transformation (Springer, 2026) make a compelling case that this is actually one of the most consequential spatial planning decisions a city can make; touching on equity, emissions, local commerce, and the circular economy all at once. Location …
For decades, package visibility has depended on a driver remembering to scan. UPS wants to change that — and its rollout of RFID sensing across the entire U.S. small-package network is the most concrete step any major carrier has taken to make that happen. As of this week, every UPS delivery vehicle in the country …
In 2025, Dutch PostNL continued its strategic transformation from a traditional postal and parcel operator into a digitally driven, data-powered logistics platform. Innovation focused on modernising the digital ecosystem, embedding AI into daily operations, strengthening cybersecurity, and improving customer experience across the entire delivery journey. At the customer interface, the PostNL app became the central …
Parcel delivery is structurally failing due to a race-to-the-bottom price war that undermines service quality, labour conditions, and customer trust.Consumers face unreliable delivery, poor tracking, and weak customer service, while retailers’ focus on the cheapest delivery shifts responsibility and accelerates the decline in service.The sector needs consolidation, fair pricing, stronger collaboration, and accountability from online …
Urban freight distribution has become one of the toughest sustainability challenges for modern cities. In a new study published in Transportation Research Part D, Jiménez and colleagues analyse how different distribution strategies influence operational efficiency and environmental impact of city logistics. Their goal is clear: to quantify how choices about vehicle deployment, routing, and consolidation …