Marks & Spencer has announced it will expand the team at its main distribution centre in preparation for Christmas, as DHL predicts that this year will see a historically large peak period.
The retailer will increase the number of staff in its online distribution team by 30% during the Christmas period.
The company will add an additional 500 fixed term workers at its Castle Donington site for the Christmas period, bringing the total number of workers there to around 4000. This is up from 3000 in 2019.
November will also see M&S extend its contactless click and collect service to 12 additional stores.
Paul Burns, M&S’s clothing and home head of logistics said: “We’re set up to ensure our colleagues can safely help our customers shop online with confidence this Christmas – from great new team members to investing in our tech.”
The news comes as various companies in the logistics sector predict a historically large peak period.
DHL Express said that it expected “unprecedented online shopping and shipping volumes” during the 2020 peak.
In the press release, the firm predicts that volumes in the DHL Express global network will riseby over 50% compared to 2019. This will come after 35% ecommerce volume growth across the year as a whole.
In September, Irish carrier An Post Commerce told InternetRetailing that it expected volumes to be 50 to 75% higher in 2020 than 2019.
