In Austria, the good economy in general and the steadily growing online trade in particular drive the business of parcel delivery companies. For example, the parcel service provider DPD Austria (headquartered in Leopoldsdorf, Bruck / Leitha district) closed the first half of the 2018 financial year with an increase of 4.6 per cent to 23.6 million transported units. “That was around one million parcels more than in the first half of the year 2017,” says Managing Director Rainer Schwarz.
The plus would have been even bigger if DPD Austria – as well as its competitors – did not struggle with the shortage of logistics personnel. “In Austria, the industry lacks several hundred deliverers,” says Rainer Schwarz. The majority of DPD parcels is shipped and delivered domestically – from January to July 2018, it was more than 12.7 million units.
The challenges the industry is facing are very clear: The number of parcels and service expectations are constantly increasing. With increasing investment requirements, the general production costs also rise. Rainer Schwarz: “These are factors that clearly push the already thin revenue structure of companies.”
DPD Austria – a joint venture of the forwarding companies Lagermax, Schachinger and Gebrüder Weiss – operates its headquarters in Leopoldsdorf. In 2017, the company delivered 46.5 million parcels, generating more than EUR 184 million in sales. DPD employs around 1,700 people throughout Austria and has a transport fleet with more than 1,000 vehicles. In Lower Austria, the parcel service provider runs three depots in Leopoldsdorf, Leobendorf and Pöchlarn.
