PostNL

Percentage wise, web shops and parcel deliverers delivered fewer packages late this past December. Sinterklaas in particular was more on time - only 3.5 percent of packages were late, compared to 5.5 percent in 2018. The delivery of Christmas cards, on the other hand, did not go well - 36 percent of people complained that their Christmas cards arrived after Christmas or even after New Year's, NOS reports based on a study by Q&A.

The Erasmus MC teamed up with PostNL, ANWB and blood bank Sanquin to launch an experiment with delivering medication and blood directly from the lab ot the hospital or from the hospital to the patient's home by drone. The idea is that drone deliveries will be much faster, as they can avoid traffic jams.

"The goal is to see if we can get medicines to people faster", spokesperson David Drexhage of Erasmus MC in Rotterdam said to RTL Nieuws. "An whether that is safe." The experiment started on Thursday and is expected to last three years.

The Dutch authority on consumers and markets ACM is blocking PostNL's planned takeover of Sandd. The takeover would result in a monopoly on the Dutch postal market and that could lead to significant price increases, the regulator said on Thursday. 

PostNL's package delivery is not up to standard, according to consumers' association Consumentenbond. Consumers have been complaining about PostNL for years. "No other company causes as many complaints as PostNL and that has to change", the association said on Tuesday, ANP reports.

Trade union FNV is not allowed to organize any strikes at PostNL in the coming weeks, the court in The Hague ruled in summary proceedings filed by the Dutch postal service, NOS reports.

PostNL argued that strikes during the busy Christmas period would cause "disproportionate damage and risks". Strikes would result in millions of euros of damages and severely affect customers waiting for mail and parcels, according to the company. 

In the run-up to Pakjesavond, PostNL processed a record number of around 12 million parcels in its distribution centers. Last year just under 10 million parcels were processed between Black Friday and December 4th, NU.nl reports.

According to PostNL, this figure was higher than expected, thanks to the increasing popularity of doing Sinterklaas shopping online. Black Friday and Cyber Monday were also busier than ever. The Dutch postal service is preparing for a similarly busy Christmas period.

Criminals abuse PostNL's parcel delivery system. The network of subcontracted package delivers are misused by criminals for things like drug transports and money laundering, Financieele Dagblad reports.

In 2014 PostNL CEO Herna Verhagen was warned about the vulnerability of courier- and parcel delivery companies, according to the newspaper. These businesses are vulnerable to threats, intimidation, money laundering, drug trafficking and and bribery, FD writes. 

An Amsterdam resident complaining about a PostNL delivery van standing on his street with the engine running, got a snarky reply from the postal service's customer care department. The Amsterdam man was advised to rather move to the countryside. 

"Do you not find it bad that you are poisoning the still developing lungs of our 1-year-old son several times a day with diesel vapors?" Amsterdam resident Vikaash Mahabir asked PostNL on Twitter on Wednesday night. "Everything for the profit margin or are you going to replace these poison buses with non toxic examples?"

Black Friday and Cyber Monday turned out to be very busy days for Dutch online stores, with Bol.com, Coolblue and Mediamarkt all reporting record breaking numbers in visitors and sales. PostNL warns that there may be some delay in delivering packages.

"Over the past days there were many extra online orders. We are delivering most packages today. For a small part of the packages, we expect a delay. We will deliver those packages tomorrow", the Dutch postal service wrote on its site on Tuesday.

PostNL and AliExpress made a deal in which the Dutch postal service will deliver a large part of the Chinese internet marketplace's packages in the Netherlands. According to the companies, this collaboration means that AliExpress customers in the Netherlands can expect delivery of their packages within five to seven days, ANP reports.

The two companies announced the deal on Thursday, though did not reveal any of the financial details about the agreement. 

AliExpress has more than 100 million customers worldwide. It is part of Chinese online marketplace Alibaba. 

Fake postal workers using a stolen mail truck are believed to be behind two separate robberies of a second-hand electronics store in Nieuwegein.
The iUsed location was robbed twice in five days. "This is very bizarre", iUsed manager Jip van Asperen said to newspaper AD. 

On Friday two people dressed as PostNL workers stole a large order of Apple devices directly from the store. The order, value estimated at around 20 thousand euros, was already packaged and waiting for the postal van to pick it up.