InPost, DHL, Poczta Polska on Black Friday – behind the scenes of the most difficult weekend of the year
InPost, DHL, DPD and Poczta Polska have been preparing for many weeks to avoid problems with parcel delivery. Both to our door and to parcel lockers. And they will certainly have no shortage of work, especially since research shows that as many as 61 percent Many of us declare that we are looking forward to the pre-Christmas shopping opportunities that begin with Black Friday.
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Black Friday. A vacation before Christmas is out of the question
To ensure that everything goes smoothly, companies work all year round on increasingly perfect solutions related to logistics During the hottest seasons, they extend the hours of sending parcels to speed up their delivery. They are also increasing employment for the entire pre-Christmas period, starting from Black Friday – Poczta Polska, for example, like InPost, declares that its staff will be increased by as much as 30%. They also implement specific organizational changes to avoid delays. Vacations during this period are out of the question. In previous years, parcel volumes increased by over 100% during this period, which requires a flexible approach to human resources management.
In addition, courier companies offer services such as “Weekend Sending” to improve the process of delivering parcels on non-working days and during the intensive shopping period.
InPost, DHL and Orlen Paczka. Parcel machines are sprouting like mushrooms after rain, and there are still too few of them
The number of vending machines is also increasing year by year – at the beginning of this year there were approximately 51,400 of them in Poland, and according to data from the second quarter of 2025, this number has increased to nearly 58,000. InPost alone has over 28 thousand of them, DPD about 11 thousand, DHL and Orlen Paczka 7 thousand each, and Poczta Polska over 1.5 thousand. Allegro also has several thousand of its own machines. In addition, there are investments in modern technological solutions, shipment management applications and process automation that are intended to speed up service and reduce the risk of human errors.
Companies are also changing their communication campaigns and trying to encourage customers to collect parcels as quickly as possible and not to leave shopping and Christmas gifts until the last minute. It happened that parcel lockers were so full that couriers sent text messages to customers.that they were waiting for them with parcels in the car in front of the parcel locker, because there were no free lockers to put the goods in. Will this never happen again? This cannot be ruled out, despite the enormous expansion of the network of machines and collection points.
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Borderless shopping with fast delivery
The Internet has abolished all boundaries a long time ago, for us today it doesn't matter whether we order a jacket online from a store around the corner or an iPhone from overseas. We expect that both shipments will reach us within the declared time. With huge traffic on the e-commerce network, this is not easy at all.
Data from 2024 show how much workload the system is in this period – warehouses, couriers, IT systems. Over the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, cross-border sales in Europe increased by 19%. year to year, and over 70 percent European customers made purchases in foreign e-shops. Forecasts indicate that in the Central and Eastern European region the value of cross-border transactions is expected to increase by 15% this year, to EUR 24 billion.
Will a robot deliver a package on Black Friday?
There are already plans to have robots take over at least some of the courier's duties. A service of shopping delivery by an autonomous robot has appeared and on the same day. For now, it is only available in Memphis, USA, where over 60 percent customers of local stores live within 5 km of the store.
But tests will also be conducted as part of the FedEx SameDay City service in 1,900 cities in 32 countries, carried out by company employees using traditional vehicles. A robot designed to safely move along sidewalks, along roads and deliver small parcels to homes and offices will complement this service for now. If it proves successful, it is possible that it will soon also visit the Vistula River.
