Aschaffenburg, 7th of November, 2023: Christmas time is parcel time: in the coming weeks millions of presents will once again be on their way. That's why DPD is again expecting a particularly high volume of shipments at the end of the year in 2023. However, if you want to send presents to your loved ones at home and abroad, you shouldn't wait too long to send your parcels.
During the peak season around 11,500 DPD delivery staff are on duty for customers every day. As Christmas Eve falls on a Sunday this year, 23 December is the last delivery day before Christmas. DPD therefore recommends that standard parcels be posted by 20 December at the latest, so that they can be delivered on time within Germany. Priority and Express parcels will arrive in time for the festive season if they are posted by Friday, 22 December. The deadline for international shipments to EU countries is 15 December. The following applies to all DPD shipping options: parcels should be handed in by 12 noon at one of the more than 7,700 DPD Pickup parcelshops throughout Germany.
For us as a parcel service provider the Peak Season marks the start of the important phase before Christmas Eve. Thanks to intensive preparations we can offer our business partners the usual high quality of service even during the busiest parcel period of the year - and not just for domestic shipments. Thanks to the unique transnational network of our parent company Geopost we can deliver our customers' parcels quickly, reliably and traceably to their destinations worldwide.
Björn Scheel, Chief Executive Officer at DPD Deutschland
Digital services make the difference
Especially in the often hectic period before Christmas, customers want efficient and predictable parcel delivery. DPD therefore offers senders and recipients the opportunity to track the journey of their parcel live in the DPD app or in the digital service platform myDPD. This means that recipients will find out exactly when their package will arrive on the day of delivery. In live tracking, the time window even updates to up to 30 minutes in the last hour before delivery.
But DPD doesn't just set standards in terms of service quality when it comes to shipment tracking. DPD also meets the diverse customer requirements in practice with a large selection of flexible delivery options. In addition to classic door-to-door delivery, the parcel service provider offers numerous alternatives. Common delivery options include choosing a different delivery day, delivering to a different address or redirecting to the nearest DPD Pickup parcel shop. Storage in a secure location is also increasingly being chosen as the preferred delivery option.
The parcel service provider offers a special digital service for recipients who would like to thank their DPD delivery person during these particularly work-intensive weeks. In the DPD app or in myDPD, customers can leave their delivery driver a digital tip and pay via PayPal. The recipient can either use the specified levels of 1.00, 2.00 and 4.00 euros or enter a personal amount; a maximum of 9.50 euros can be entered. The recipient can determine whether the individual delivery person has activated the digital tipping function by entering the package number.
