This year, between Black Friday and Sinterklaas (December 5), the Dutch mail company PostNL processed a whopping 12 million packages in their distribution centres. During the same period last year, this figure was slightly less than 10 million.
Buying gifts online for Sinterklaas is becoming increasingly popular, but according to PostNL, the number of packages was higher than expected. Black Friday and Cyber Monday were also busier than ever, so states the Dutch mail service, which is now getting ready for a similarly busy Christmas period.
According to the Dutch Payments Association, in the week running up to Sinterklaas 2,4 billion euros was spent in shops and paid for via bankcard and 991 million euros was spent online with iDEAL as the payment method. Last year, only 768 million euros was spent using iDEAL at online shops.
Whilst PostNL did manage to process a record number of packages, operations were not exactly smooth, with the company receiving hundreds of complaints due to delivery delays. Because of the large number of packages, PostNL experienced a backlog.
How big the backlog is and how many packages were delivered late because of this is unknown; however, according to a spokesperson for the mail service, “The majority of orders were delivered on the promised day”.