Impacts of the COVID-19 on Courier Industry

The COVID-19 Pandemic has affected every industry and market across the world, most of the markets were affected badly but some saw a huge growth during the pandemic. One of the markets that saw a huge increase in their demand is Courier and Logistics Market. People switched over to online shopping because of COVID and with lockdown & closures of shops around the world, those people turned to online shopping who never liked online shopping in their life.

Due to this, a huge rise in demand was seen for Courier & Logistics services. Courier companies started to get more & more orders and were heavily benefited by this pandemic. Here's a closer look at how the COVID-19 Pandemic affected the courier & logistics services across the world:

Growth of E-Commerce and Courier Industry 

With COVID-19, more and more people switched over to online shopping, whether it is shopping for groceries or other goods, people turned towards online shopping and it caused a huge increase in sales for many e-commerce retailers and also the post & courier companies who had the job of delivering the orders.

Online giants like Amazon saw a huge increase in their orders and this meant more orders for the couriers and logistics companies such as DTDC, VRL, FedEx, etc to deliver around the world. 

Both the E-Commerce and Courier Industry experienced growth during this time period and these are some of the handful industries that experienced growth during this pandemic.

More Workload

While most people shifted towards online shopping and the courier companies saw a huge boost in their growth, there came more workload with all of this. Whether a courier company is big or small, is not immune to issues such as Workload and due to a huge volume of orders, the courier companies face this particular issue all over the world.

The volume of the orders to be delivered was much greater than usual and hence the workload was greater on courier companies. To comply with this, the employees working in courier companies had to work longer hours than usual so that there is minimal delay in the delivery. The companies also hired some temporary workers in order to cope with the high volume of the orders and parcels that had to be delivered to minimize the impact on their operations

Delays in deliveries

With lockdowns and closures of cities, there came delays in deliveries. The most affected services were the rush and overnight deliveries that were delivered a day or two later than expected. The normal delivery services were also affected and the customers received their orders 3-4 days later than a given time period.

While most consumers understood delays in deliveries in times of crisis, some didn't and due to this, the companies had to deal with some angry customers. So, the companies had to process a huge volume of orders and also deliver them in the given time period & this became a huge task to pull off for some of the courier companies.

Collection of return orders

In pre-COVID times, if the consumers ordered something and didn't like it then they would usually prefer going to the drop-off points in order to return the product that they ordered, however, during COVID, people preferred that return orders should be picked up from the home.

So, if there was any return order that had to be returned, courier companies had to collect those orders from the consumers' home instead of the consumers dropping it off onto the drop-off point and this also increased the workload on the companies.

Delayed Cross-Border Deliveries

With COVID Pandemic spreading across the world, most countries decided to close their borders and cross-border flights as a preventive measure to contain the spread of the disease and had a huge impact on cross-border delivery.

During the pandemic, postal and courier companies had to face a problem that the orders or shipments from foreign countries are not delivered to the recipients owing to one reason or another and this led to a huge delay in international deliveries. 

How did the courier companies cope with the COVID Pandemic?

Courier companies with good management and foresight anticipated that during COVID Pandemic the demand for home delivery and online shopping would increase and they took steps that helped them minimize the impact of COVID-19 on their operations.

• Protection became essential during the pandemic and these companies provided delivery and courier drivers with PPE such as face masks, gloves, sanitizers to ensure their safety.
• Many companies removed the need for signatures at the time of delivery. Instead, the delivery drivers would take the photos of the parcels being delivered as proof that the parcel has been delivered and there is no contact between the delivery driver and the consumer.
• To cope with increasing work, the companies hired some temporary workers on a contract basis to help them cope with a huge surge in the orders that had to be delivered
• The companies also introduced new technologies, especially the digitalization of their services to provide various kinds of services to meet the demands of different customers.
• Delays were not unusual in the Pandemic and most customers also understood their parcels and shipments getting delayed during the time of crisis. To make sure that there were no angry customers, the companies informed their customers about the delays via Phone and SMS.