Winners of the 2024 Courier and Postal Services Excellence Awards Gala

SAMEDAY was named Courier Company of the Year, also awarding itself the award for Transaction of the Year, achieving one of the most important transactions in the courier industry by acquiring Sprinter - a company with over 25 years of experience in the Hungarian delivery services market . SAMEDAY was also named the winner of the Best website, as well as the category "Best delivery solution to a fixed point" with easybox. Launched six years ago, the easybox network developed by SAMEDAY redefined the standards of the Romanian courier market, fundamentally transforming the delivery experience. Today, SAMEDAY operates the most extensive locker network in the region, with 7,000 units, being an example of innovation, advanced technology and operational efficiency. With this solution, SAMEDAY continues to set new benchmarks in the industry and meet the increasingly complex demands of consumers for flexible deliveries. Delivery to easybox has become standard in Romania for online stores, but also for consumers, registering 95% of the urban population as users of the service.

Fan Courier also won the Courier Investment of the Year award, building the newest HUB in Ștefăneștii de Jos on a 184,000 sq m land area over the course of a year, following an investment of 25 million euros. The new HUB offers the opportunity to consolidate all warehousing and logistics activities in one place, streamlining order processing, reducing distances and optimizing operational costs. The others nominated in this category were Colete Online for the development of the first independent network of lockers that can be used by all courier companies, following an investment of 1 million euros, with the target of 500 lockers installed by the end of 2025, but and SAMEDAY for investments of over 30 million euros in expanding the out-of-home network in 2024.

Fan Courier also received the award for Commitment to Sustainability through the investments made to achieve the objectives set in the sustainability strategy, a very important objective assumed by FAN Courier being the neutralization of the carbon footprint by the year 2040, becoming the first Romanian company to sign The Climate Pledge .

The third award obtained by Fan Courier is in the Black Friday Hero category, and finally the Courier Manager of the Year went to Fan Courier representative Cornel Morcov, Chief Commercial Officer, who joined the company in 2007 and had as his first role the development of the international services of the company. He also managed the implementation of Eurocargo, the transport brokerage service - shipping company. Currently, Cornel coordinates the commercial activities of FAN Courier, being responsible for the establishment and implementation of the commercial strategy, he took care of the start-up of FAN Moldova, is responsible for the international expansion of the company, manages the relationship with domestic and international partners, manages FAN International and last but not least, manage the company's development projects. The other nominees in the Manager of the Year category were Costin Gavrilescu, Founder and CEO of Colete Online, Alin Abalașei, VP Country Leadership for Romania and Bulgaria within SAMEDAY and Ioana Dima, Logistics Manager of Altexpress Courier & Fulfillment Service.

The company with the highest percentage increase in turnover was Colete Online, with a turnover recorded at the end of 2023 of 6.9 Million Euros, registering an increase of over 48%.

The program with outstanding social impact of the year was won this year by Poșta Română for expanding the STEP HEAR system nationwide in 47 post offices, a project through which it supports blind customers and implements the STEP HEAR system in 47 post offices nationwide, through which a visually impaired person can easily obtain the necessary information to move around the office and to access postal services without the need for a companion. The pilot project was initiated last year at the Post Office no. 39 from Bucharest, with the support of the Association of the Blind from Romania and counts 1,458 unique users of the application with an average frequency of one use per month; the request support button board installed at the entrance to the offices is used by at least one person every week, a minimum of more than 2,000 people who have used the request support button in the last 11 months.

The award given to the partners of the courier companies, based on their nominations, was awarded to Ford Romania, which again won the Car of the Year distinction in the courier services category for Ford Transit.

The prize for the most innovative service or product in courier and postal services went to ARKA Smart Parcel Lockers for the Lumen Locker, equipped with accessories usually found only in traditional smart lockers, modular and expandable, able to include up to 8 extensions, each with 2 columns. It also offers unique peripherals such as 12-inch LED touch screen, QR scanner, video surveillance and alarm system, LED lighting system and 4G mobile router. One of the most important features of the Lumen locker is the encapsulated battery with an impressive 10-year lifetime that does not require replacement. Its advanced energy production and storage management system make it unique, being probably the only locker of its kind in the world.

The award for the best cross-border service was awarded to Packeta Romania, a company that continues to be a strategic partner for e-commerce, consolidating its leading position in the cross-border delivery segment, in 2024 doubling the volume of managed parcels , compared to the previous year. Over 35% of Packeta Romania customers (online stores and sellers) opted for international delivery in 2024, which marked an increase of over 20% compared to the previous year. Packeta offers its customers the international network with over 18,000 own pick-up points and over 8,000 Z-BOX lockers in Europe, including Romania. In partnership with other suppliers, the European network extends to more than 160,000 pick-up points in Europe. The other nominees of the category are: Altexpress Courier & Fulfillment Services, FAN International, SAMEDAY and DPD.

The award dedicated to the Courier Technology Provider was awarded to BOWE Austria, which offers a wide range of solutions and equipment for the courier and postal sector, and which, through a total investment of 4.8 million Euros by Sameday , 3 sorting lanes for small and medium-sized parcels and a lane for non-transferable items, adapted to meet customer needs and requirements, with a total capacity of 33,500 parcels/hour, in locations such as Sofia, Cluj, Brașov and Bucharest, lanes that were installed in 2024, before Black Friday.

The Green Product Award in Delivery Services was won by Lockere As a Service by Colete Online, the first independent Lockere network that it wants to make available to courier companies. Thus, courier companies can focus on providing the best possible courier services, and the locker will be used by them "as a service". The other nominees were FANbox & PUDO by FAN Courier and easybox by SAMEDAY.

Following the success of the Romanian Courier and Postal Services Forum every spring, the only event dedicated to this sector, Govnet Romania managed to gather the most important players in the industry to celebrate the outstanding results, the success in courier and postal services.

The partners of the Excellence Awards Gala in the Courier and Postal Services Sector 2024 were: Colete-Online, FAN Courier, Ford Motor Company Romania, Packeta Romania, Sameday Romania, Altexpress, BOWE AUSTRIA, Honeywell Romania, Total Technologies, ROPECO BUCURESTI, AQUA Carpatica , Domeniile Samburesti.