Category: Courier News

Fraikin has secured more than a 50 per cent share of long-standing customer T. Quality’s commercial fleet of more than 100 vehicles, after delivering five new DAF refrigerated trucks on a seven-year, full-service contract hire agreement.

Building on a 20-year working relationship, the two 15-tonne and three 7.5-tonne DAF LF rigids replace older models previously on contract hire from a competitor. The latest additions follow a similar deal for 11 identical vehicles – eight 15-tonne and three 7.5-tonne – which Fraikin delivered into T. Quality’s fleet in 2018. read more

Ipswich logistics firm, Go Freight Transport Ltd has left its drivers jobless after being told that the firm had gone under via text message on Tuesday 11 February.

Sources have confirmed that Milson Silva and Bruno Maximo were among the dozens of drivers and a handful of administrative staff who worked for the company which have been affected by the news.

After being instructed to come into the company’s head office at Basepoint, Ransomes Europark, Silva and Maximo waited in their cabs for hours without hearing a word. The silence was then broken with the devastating news through text. read more

The news that the government and Highways England have developed a further solution to handle potential traffic disruption from the ports in Kent is promising news for businesses in the county, and for hauliers who need to keep goods moving between the UK and the Continent.  

 FTA’s Policy Manger for the South East of England, Heidi Skinner, commented: “No operator wants to be stuck in slow moving or stationary traffic, and today’s announcement will come as a welcome respite for those concerned about the impact of potential delays on the UK’s supply chain from the Continent, as well as on businesses and residents in Kent.  read more

Visitors to the Aldershot branch of Mercedes-Benz Vans Retailer Rossetts Commercials are assured of a warm welcome at its smartly refurbished dealership in the Hampshire town.

The company has given its Eastern Road premises a £150,000 facelift. Gone are the previous, unattractive brick frontage and imposing fencing. Instead, the building is now clad in eye-catching silver aluminium, while the Dealer has also created new vehicle display and customer parking bays.

The interior has benefited from the upgrade too, with new reception areas and airy, open plan offices making it an altogether more attractive environment for visiting customers and Rossetts colleagues alike. read more

Research conducted by YouGov for parcel locker provider InPost, has revealed that almost a fifth (17%) say they never needed an item quickly, suggesting the logistics industry’s pursuit of speed may be pre-emptive rather than driven by consumer demand.

The consumer study of more than 2,000 shoppers across the UK found that more than a fifth (22%) of 45 to 54-year olds made in excess of 50 online purchases a year – meaning at least one order a week – the most popular answer among that age group. read more

Parcel service Smartmile, Konecranes Agilon and K Group, one of the largest retail chains in Finland have launched robotic parcel machines which combine storage at room and refrigerator temperatures.

The service is active in two locations in Finland. The parcel machine allows customers to pick up their groceries and their online orders from one pick up point at any time of the day.

With this innovative solution customers can pick up their groceries and all their other parcels around the clock as the robotic parcel machines are installed outside for easy access. Consumers can order their weekly groceries to the parcel machine by using the K Group’s application for online grocery orders. When the order has been placed the groceries are collected and inserted to the parcel machine by the store personnel. The parcel machines are installed in two K-stores in Finland; in K-Supermarket Pajala, Järvenpää and in K-Supermarket Hämeenkylä, Vantaa. read more

Innovative Warehouse Management

P&O Ferrymasters has recently implemented CORAX Warehouse Management System (WMS) in two of its warehouses. P&O Ferrymasters has formulated a strategic five-year plan, called Port Centric strategy, in which warehousing has once again become its own core activity. These are the first two warehouses in this new strategy.

CORAX is an innovative WMS developed by Davanti Warehousing. The WMS enables control over internal warehousing and CORAX is SaaS (Software as a Service) which means that it’s an online, scalable product requiring no server or IT infrastructure. read more

 Glovo, the Barcelona-based on-demand delivery start-up has entered a partnership with Pernod Ricard, global wine & spirits producer, to further develop its drinks category. The deal will cover all of Glovo’s 22 markets in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and Latin America. 

The market for on-demand delivery of alcoholic beverages is growing at a rapid rate, with 72% of spirits now consumed off-trade and in-home. As a result, the partnership between Glovo and Pernod Ricard is designed to offer a wide range of premium products, an effective, efficient and convenient experience for legal-drinking aged consumers to purchase alcoholic beverages on-demand. read more

An Post have announced that as of today the price of a standard domestic stamp will increase from €1 to €1.10 and a standard international stamp from €1.70 to €1.80. 

This domestic price increase, the first in three years (since April 2017), reflects other European postal services’ price increases over the past three years and keeps An Post tariffs in line with the European average.

Increases in letter prices across Europe reflect the steady decline in traditional letter volumes globally due to e-substitution. read more

The country followed a rabbit down the austerity hole, but there’s no Brexit wonderland for Britain’s workers

Has Britain turned a corner? If you believe the headlines it would certainly seem so. Wages are up, and unemployment appears the lowest for decades. If you believe the hype then the last decade has been a journey where the country followed a rabbit into the austerity hole and emerged into a Brexit wonderland. This is a fiction and the facts are more troubling. If Britain had full employment there ought to be a sharp rise in wage growth as businesses see the pool of labour – Marx’s reserve army of the unemployed – dry up. Yet wage growth has dropped from 4.1% in April last year to 2.8%. Pay packets are still smaller than they were a decade ago. Total pay is £503 a week, well below the £522 a week workers took home before the crisis began in 2008. read more