The Courier Poznań Sightseeing Guide - Not quite a tourist guide

8 January 2020

Local courier services Poznań

Like other large cities, Poznan attracts considerable business interest. One of the advantages of working and doing business in a large city like Poznan is the proximity to business partners. A company operating in a smaller town often has to reckon with the fact that many of its potential business partners and customers will be somewhere in another part of the country, with the need to send materials or documents to other places. Poznań, on the other hand, has the advantage that many of the company's potential business partners are on site. It is a kind of feedback loop - a big city attracts entrepreneurs because there are already other entrepreneurs there. This makes it easier to maintain regular contacts with them. On the other hand, in a big city like Poznań or Warsaw it's not always that easy either - just getting to the other end of town can be troublesome and time-consuming. I used to live in Smochowice in Poznań and I remember how long it took to get to the city centre by car, not to mention public transport, as the only fast option here was the train. And often a company has an office or production plant not in the centre, but just in the suburbs, perhaps in some special economic zone or technology park, or simply because the prices of usable space in the centre are prohibitive (this is one of the disadvantages of operating in a big city). At the same time, however, since the partners are already all in the same city, it is natural to expect the necessary documents or parcels to be delivered at least on the same day, if not immediately. In this situation, the standard delivery times that the courier company offers (generally up to 48 hours) seem a bit absurd. After all, the destination is Zegrze, not the UK, the US or other Virgin Islands. On the other hand, dumping courier duties on the company's employees wastes resources and man-hours of people who, after all, have other responsibilities and are often overqualified to play with courier services. In a big city, local courier services are needed: Krakow, Warsaw or Poznan are too big to walk with a parcel, but too small to wait two days for courier services to deliver parcels. This is where local courier performing the tasks of a courier company in the city area.

In the case of the InPost offer, it supports this city courier Wrocław, Warsaw, Szczecin, Łódź, Krakow, Katowice, Gdańsk, Rzeszów and, of course, Poznań. The essence of the local courier service is to deliver shipments within the city of on the date of posting . InPost offers courier parcels delivered within the city within 5 or 2 hours, depending on the option chosen, as long as they are posted before twelve o'clock. There is also an option to have the parcel delivered directly from the sender to the recipient, but only within the administrative boundaries of the city (which in the case of Poznań is not necessarily close). In other options, on the other hand, courier parcels are delivered not only in the city, but also within a radius of 30 km from its administrative borders.

In Poznań, there are probably city courier firms, because the provision of such services is usually the domain of local courier firms, which are well acquainted with the specifics of the city and can offer tailored services to local conditions. Nevertheless, by opting for the services of a nationwide courier company with an established reputation, you can count on a certain predictable standard. This is particularly important if the company is using local courier services for the first time or occasionally and has no proven partners among local courier companies.

Courier deliveries: Poznan, smog and parcel machines

The inhabitants of Poznan scornfully call one of the villa districts near Poznan "Smogowice". However, while in Smochowice the source of smog is chimney smoke, in the centre of Poznań it is car traffic which contributes to air pollution (as well as numerous other problems). This is not a particularly Polish problem - it is even more acute in the United States, the United Kingdom and other developed countries, not to mention China. The topic is therefore widely discussed. In the case of logistics, the main source of pollution (as well as costs), per individual parcel, is considered to be the so-called 'last mile', i.e. the last distance that goods travel from a high-capacity delivery point (e.g. a railway station, truck unloading point, or port) to the customer. The vehicles that a courier company uses to deliver goods along this stretch generate a whole range of environmental problems:

Smog (from smoke and fog) is a mixture of haze and airborne particulate matter (that's those infamous PM10 and PM2.5). Its main source in city centres is dust rubbed off from brake pads and street surfaces, rather than tailpipe emissions

CO2 produced during fuel combustion contributes to global warming and adverse climate change, the greatest environmental challenge of the 21st century.

Noise pollution is extremely troublesome for residents of city centres, and not enough is said about the problem

Increased risk of traffic accidents

The space that cars occupy in the city (both in traffic and in car parks).

Impediments to the movement of alternative modes of urban transport (pedestrians, bicycles, public transport), which generate less pollution and CO2, caused by the congestion of cars.

How do Parcelcells help solve this problem? They help by relieving the courier of the need to go that last mile with one parcel. What contributes to the effectiveness of Paczkomaty is their number (recall that Poznań has more than 200). InPost conducted research on a sample of 1,200 customers who declared that they most often pick up parcels on their way back from work, school or shopping, which is easy as Paczkomaty are available 24/7. Thanks to this, the carbon footprint of the last mile is not passed on to the customer, who, even if he or she drives to a Paczkomaty by car, does so as part of a journey he or she would have made anyway. Besides, in Poznań (as well as all towns with more than 200,000 inhabitants), many customers are no more than 500 metres away from a Parcel Machine (⅔ of respondents have no more than a kilometre to the nearest Parcel Machine), so they usually walk to the Parcel Machine. In the largest cities, such people make up more than half of the Parcel Machine users.

How to send parcels to/from Poznań

You can send a parcel without registering using the "Szybkienadania.pl" website, where you can prepare parcels for shipment online through a simple form, in which you enter the data necessary for sending the parcel. First you choose the form of shipment (parcel or courier) and the size of the parcel. You will be sending the parcel in a Parcel Machine, so the key is to find out which box it will fit into and to indicate the Parcel Machine for delivery. You then enter your details and those of the recipient (first name, last name, email address and telephone number, and, in the case of courier delivery, the exact delivery address). For your convenience, on the right-hand side at all times you have a box containing a summary of all your choices (regarding delivery, not life unfortunately), as well as the resulting price. You then agree to the terms and conditions of service, pay by online transfer and you can print a shipping label to stick on your parcel. After scanning the code from the label, the appropriate locker in the selected Parcel Machine will open and you can put the parcel into it. Once the locker is closed, the parcel is considered to have been sent.

If for some reason you don't want to or can't leave your home (House arrest? Quarantine? Agoraphobia? Zombie plague?) you can send a parcel by courier without leaving your home. If you have an account with InPost Parcel Manager then you can order a courier to collect parcels from your home for less than £5 (or even free if you send five or more parcels at once). After logging in to Parcel Manager, you click the 'send parcels' option and select a delivery method in the sending form. Having filled in the form, including the exact details of the recipient (including the exact address of the courier delivery), you specify the size of the parcel and choose the place of sending. At this point, in addition to the two standard options (sending in a Parcel Machine or at a Parcel Service Point), you have a third option available, which will allow you to send the parcel without leaving your home: "I will create a collection order - the parcel will be collected by InPost courier (extra paid service)". This means exactly what it says, i.e. that the courier will come to you to pick up the parcels. However, the courier will not come to pick up parcels anywhere - the parcel collection point (or points) must be defined beforehand. You do this in your account settings under "New collection point". There you will find a form where you can enter the address of your new parcel pick-up point, but this must be verified, which can take up to 24 hours. If you already have one or more pick-up points defined, you can select one of them when preparing your parcel shipment in Parcel Manager and wait calmly for the courier to arrive to collect your parcels. If you still have questions, call the InPost helpline at 722 444 000 or 746 600 000.