Sydney facility will operate on pay-per-use model to keep costs in check
It has been a busy start to the year for DHL, with the company launching a new online freight platform in Europe and a new facility in Australia to support the growing e-commerce business.
While its new digital freight platform, Cillox, is aimed to improve connectivity between shippers and transport providers in Germany, the company’s new Sydney-based fulfilment centre will provide overseas merchants with fast and flexible shipping options that integrate inbound freight, inventory and last-mile delivery in a single consolidated service.
“The launch of our Australian fulfilment centre gives our customers immediate access to one of the world’s most mature and fastest growing e-commerce markets, with the scalability and quality needed to reach Australia’s highly savvy online shoppers,” DHL e-commerce MD Australia Damien Sheehan says.
The company states that with e-commerce growth expected to remain at an average of 29 per cent until 2020, it saw the need to streamline the process of order fulfilment with the online shopping boom in Australia.
Matching the same service levels as its global network, the new fulfilment centre will allow “existing customers to expand their sales into Australia with minimal boarding time and hassle” and remove the need for e-commerce merchants to search for logistics partners as they plan to expand their international footprint, DHL says.
“Our Australian facility adds another node to our standardised global network of fulfilment centres located in US, Mexico, India, Hong Kong and Central Europe, eliminating the need for e-commerce merchants to hunt for new logistics partners as they look to expand their global reach,” DHL e-commerce CEO Charles Brewer says.
All services at the new centre operate on a pay-per-use model with no capital spend or fixed costs.
DHL Cillox CEO Amadou Diallo is confident the new technology will “simplify” the shipping process for road freight within Germany or from Germany throughout Europe.
Cillox will offer transport operators “of all sizes” a platform to showcase their assets and capabilities to shippers so they can find the most suitable match for their cargo needs.
It will include pricing information based on the shipment characteristics, availability of trucks and last-booked rates.
Cillox will also consolidate processes such as tracking, documentation and payment across a single platform.
Other benefits of the new technology include real-time notifications related to deliveries, simplified navigation suggestions for drivers, document scanning using mobile phone, among others.
DHL says the technology is ready for use after a successful trial between September 2016 and January 2017.