2020 - our year in figures

What a year it's been! As we head into a well-deserved break over the holidays, I've been looking back. It has been a challenging year in many ways. I think our team has overcome it by focusing on solutions. I don't want to say it was all fun, because we all know it wasn't. But I am happy to share some of the things we are proud of this year.

We doubled our staff

If you had predicted to me on 1 January that our team would conduct 925+ virtual interviews, I would have laughed. But that's exactly what we did. In fact, we added 31 new post-sales specialists to our team this year.

We had over 50 vacancies in all different departments and offices. Speaking of which, we opened two new offices this year. In February, we opened the doors of our Paris office and are very proud of our wonderful team there. Shortly after, in April, we opened our first US office in New York! Now that I think about it, I'm not surprised that we had so many interviews after all...

We celebrated five years of parcelLab and onboarded new clients and partnerships

I want to be careful here because I know there are many people in other industries who have unfortunately not experienced a similar development. What I will say is that we are proud to have made new partnerships and strengthened existing ones this year. It has been great to see how our solution has helped our customers with their challenges - more than ever, in fact. We signed more than 80 new contracts. Our new customers include Farfetch, Shop Pharmacy, NU-IN, Paul Valentine and Springlane. Welcome to the parcelLab family - we're very excited to have you on board!

We're also delighted to have won some impressive awards this year - most recently we were named one of the Top 100 Retail Tech companies for 2020 by CB Insight. We won Best Tech for Clients at the Retail Project Awards and were named in the top 50 of RWRC'S Discovery 50 Global Tech Start-ups.

With time, we did some research

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When it became clear that everything was going to be very different from what we had initially expected, we decided to take a step back and consider where we could add the most value to our customers and partners. We developed a special white paper to help companies manage the challenges of COVID-19.

In late spring, we again analysed the top 100 German online shops and summarised the results in our E-Commerce Shipping Study 2020. To shed light on the customer's point of view, we asked more than 2000 online shoppers about their expectations and wishes in our E-Commerce from the Customer's Perspective study. Then we pulled together all our research, data and experience to create "The New Consumer" - a guide to how the pandemic has affected the way consumers shop.

Value was and is important to us

I have to say that I am really proud of the team this year. As an international scale-up, we are already used to video calls and the like. But this year, of course, we have taken everything to the extreme. We estimate that the team had more than 4200 virtual meetings this year.... another fact I wouldn't have believed if I'd been told 12 months ago. We also had 33 meetings with the whole team to keep everyone up to date and connected no matter where they were.

To keep our team feeling valued, we sent a total of four care packages to each team member, filled with a compilation of things to keep them fit and healthy, but also some surprises to entertain them and make them feel connected. We didn't let the pandemic stop us from having our famous parcelLab parties. We held seasonal events throughout the year to keep in touch and keep spirits high as best we could.

A year we will all remember

There is so much more to say about this year, but I want to focus on what we achieved in unusual circumstances. We have worked hard and made tremendous progress. I have big ideas and dreams for 2021.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to our annual kick-off event in January (virtually, of course) where our teams will share their goals for the year and make plans to get us to where we want to be at the end of 2021. But for now, it's time for a relaxing Christmas period. I would like to take this time to thank the parcelLab team, our network and our wonderful customers.

 

I wish you a happy & healthy new year.

Tobias Buxhoidt, parcelLab CEO & Founder