Omniva: e-commerce market requires new services

The fast growth of e-commerce has influenced both the logistics market and human consumption habits. The latest business and statistical data of 2013 also show a further increase in the number of internet shops and their turnover in Latvia. Omiva, the Estonian logistics company, has also transformed from a classical post delivery service provider (Eesti Post) to an international company which employs various communication channels or offers omni-channel logistics solutions.

Turnover data of the Central Statistical Bureau on retail businesses operating in internet shops show a stable trend – starting from 2009, which was the lowest point for the industry, their turnover has steadily increased. Latest figures on the biggest Latvian e-shops show that the total turnover of the industry also increased in 2013. In a year's time the turnover of the internet shop 220.lv increased by almost 5 million EUR or by 66 % amounting to 12.4 million EUR. The internet shop 1a.lv also attained a turnover of 14.2 million EUR in 2013. (Lursoft data)

The growing diversity of the shopping channels also changes the businesses which ensure logistics services. The logistics operator Omniva has become an international company which has provided its parcel services through a single network of parcel machines in all of the Baltic states for more than a year. In view of the fast-growing e-commerce sector in Latvia, Omniva has also started providing several local services, ensuring not only more convenient deliveries for friends or family members but also ensuring added convenience for business deliveries to customers.

First, Omniva provides business solutions which ensure the delivery of goods to the most impatient customers – in Rīga parcels may be handed over to couriers till 1 p.m. and delivered to the city parcel machines till 6 p.m. on the same day. Omniva is the only Baltic parcel terminal network which offers such services to corporate customers. It is also possible to combine Omniva's parcel machine service and courier service, as well as to deliver XL parcels. Omniva couriers may receive a parcel at a location convenient for the customer and on the next day it is already delivered to the indicated parcel machine or address elsewhere in the Baltics. The customer should only choose an appropriate locker, and he/she does not pay for the weight but rather for the size, which can be easily determined.

“As proven by our experience in Estonia, for e-commerce to develop successfully in a country it is necessary to ensure customers convenient and secure online shopping so that customers have no idea of how complicated the way from clicking "Buy" to receiving the purchased goods actually is. Our task is to provide businesses a single service which ensures that entrepreneurs have no worries regarding the process itself, as the whole cycle starting from drafting the e-invoice to delivery of the goods is not performed by the trader, but rather by the logistics company,” said Joona Saluveer, Member of Omniva Board.

The corporate targets in Latvia also show its prospects of rapid growth as it is planned to increase the total turnover 5 times. In order to attain these aims, new services will be introduced and the current parcel machine network will be expanded with 8 new bigger-sized parcel machines by the end of the year, thus servicing the booming deliveries during the Christmas period.