Parcel shipping and returns through online retail at record levels

Oktay Danisir has a small kiosk filled to the brim with goods in the Mombach district of Mainz. Between drinks, sweets, toast and canned goods, there are also a number of packages in the sales room, which his employee Julianna Iktaii stacks so that no one falls over them.

There is a lot of activity in "Oktay's Kiosk". Someone is constantly coming in and just wants to buy a quick cigarette, have a quick chat or drop off a package.

“Every Monday the parcel services pick up 200 to 300 parcels from me,” says the kiosk owner. He has been running the store for eight years. Because he works with five different parcel services, the volume of parcels in his store is high.

“It has become more and more common in recent years,” reports Danisir. "People order a lot over the Internet, and of course they send a lot back." For him, the deal is worth it. Of course there is a lot going on, especially around Christmas. But things are also going really well outside of the holidays, says Danisir.

According to an estimate by the “Returns Management” research group at the Chair of Business Administration at the University of Bamberg, the number of returns in 2026 will be 560 million packages. “This is more than ever before,” says the head of the research group, Björn Asdecker.

Almost every fourth package sent via online retail is already returned to the sender. That corresponds to 24.1 percent of orders. According to the research group, in 2025 there would be significantly fewer, namely 542 million.

The proportion of returns has not changed, but because more and more items are being ordered online, the number of returns is also increasing, says Asdecker: "There is no final volume data for 2026, but leading associations such as the German Trade Association or the Federal Association of E-Commerce and Mail Order are expecting sales growth."

The Federal Association of Parcel and Express Logistics (BPEX) is forecasting a continued growing parcel market and is assuming 4.48 billion shipments. According to Asdecker's forecast, 560 million of these are returns. Around 90 percent of the returned items concern fashion, according to the scientist.

The rate of returned packages could even tend to increase, says the researcher. Because more and more customers are shopping via mobile phone apps. These in turn encouraged quick, impulsive buying, even more than purchases on the computer.

“When you're on an app, you press the order button much faster because, unlike perhaps online, you don't have to make comparisons with other offers from other retailers,” says Asdecker. Customers often stick with an app that they use and that makes quick purchases easy.

Michael Kiefer heads the delivery department at the DHL Group in Mannheim. He is responsible for the regions around Heidelberg, Ludwigshafen and Kaiserslautern. Kiefer confirms that the number of parcel shipments nationwide has been increasing for years as a result of online trading.

"The number of parcel shipments more than doubled on peak days before Christmas compared to last year." It's impossible to say whether these are orders or returns, says Kiefer, but that's basically not important. "The fact is, our parcel delivery people have a lot more to do."

He needs significantly more staff, especially at Christmas, Easter and around public holidays, which is why he hires around 20 percent more people. Sometimes these people are taken on later, sometimes they are just short-term jobs.

Basically, his industry is benefiting from the boom in online business. “As a logistics service provider, we of course find this positive. Due to the high volume of parcels, we can also compensate for the fact that the number of letters is declining,” says the DHL manager, Kiefer.

Environmental associations such as Greenpeace, Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) and NABU, on the other hand, have been sharply criticizing the returns business for years. Sending back produced goods means a massive waste of resources, puts a strain on the climate and increases traffic in inner cities.

The mass destruction of returns is also repeatedly criticized. Since July, large companies have no longer been allowed to simply destroy unsold goods. But the European Union's ban is not entirely clear and has gaps.

Björn Asdecker from the University of Bamberg says that the high volume of returns is also due to the fact that many online retailers offer returns free of charge. The large Internet senders in particular feared that they could be required to charge a fee for this. “They don’t want that, otherwise they would do it voluntarily,” said Asdecker.

A return currently costs companies money, but at the same time brings in more purchases. "The customers who return above average numbers are the most profitable customer groups because they order very, very often and keep more than they send back."

Mainz kiosk owner Oktay Danisir also benefits from these customers. "The parcel service makes me good money and attracts people to the store who otherwise wouldn't come," he says. He could use the profit from the parcel business to pay his shop rent.