Growing Romanian courier market slowed down by red tape

 The courier market in Romania is in constant growth, due to e-commerce and corporate investment, even if there is a slowdown in business due to red tape procedures of central and local administrations, in particular, in terms of regulations and authorisations, is the main conclusion of the Courier & Postal Services Forum 2025 conference organised by Govnet Conferences."In our industry we witness important growth after the pandemic. At FAN Courier, we grow more because of international sellers, because of e-commerce and not because of local sellers. The e-commerce market in Romania is quite polarised. It is a main player who has managed to overcome his condition and does extraordinary things. The distance from its followers is a terribly great one. There is consumption in Romania and that makes us happy," said Cornel Morcov, Chief Commercial Officer, FAN Courier.According to him, the courier business has increased especially due to the very large volumes of parcels from China, the value of the shopping cart has decreased on average per shipment, but the number of orders has increased.The FAN Courier representative showed that the Romanian government has done nothing to increase the infrastructure in the cargo area, although Romania has a very high potential in this regard."We made an investment recently. We announced the acquisition of a customs broker precisely because we want to improve these operational processes, to offer customers in Romania a very good experience in the delivery area. The greatest effort is made by us, private companies. The support we receive from the governemnt is limited," said Morcov.Like the other entrepreneurs, the FAN Courier exec said that there is currently a very high pressure on the costs of courier companies, especially in the area of investment and in the relationship with customers and suppliers, who try to get the best possible profits."If we had not invested hundreds of millions in automation, hubs, sorting systems, lockers and others, we would not have had the capacity to resist. To make investments you need money, which you have to take from the market or finance yourself, with a profit margin. We hope that we will be able to somehow set up, as an industry, to be able to continue managing business at the standards we want."According to Morcov, there are certain mayoralties, local governments that have started to put the brakes on the area where parcel lockers are located. "On the building permit for our warehouses, absolutely nothing has changed. We measure in years the time from submitting the documents to get the necessary approvals," said the FAN Courier representative.He said that the local administration of the city of Timisoara for forbidding the placement of lockers on the public domain for incomprehensible reasons. "We invest tens of thousands of euros in such a device, we remove pollution from the city, we bring added value to the consumer, there are many advantages, especially since we lower costs, including for the consumers. The administration considers that the lockers look ugly, that they have a certain colour in an urban area. The fact is that we do not receive support from the authorities," concluded the FAN Courier exec.In his turn, Alin Abalasei, VP Country Leadership RO&BG, Sameday Group, said that, in 2024, there was an increase of about 25% in the use of its easybox parcel lockers.Roxana Babatie, Head of Domestic Sales, Cargus, said that the company's investments in 2024 focused on as much automation, digital transformation and technology as possible. She showed that a very high pressure on transport costs comes mostly from Chinese sellers, who want to negotiate extraordinarily low costs for large volumes of parcels brought.The change in the behaviour of the Romanian buyers was also noted by Marian Eitan, CEO, Mediaposte Hit Mail, who mentioned that "people don't really buy quality products anymore, but buy more products of worse quality, with the same money." "The competition from the Chinese is direct to both traditional retail and online retail, which is a spectacular trend," Mediaposte Hit Mail CEO said.In its 12th edition, the Courier & Postal Services Forum aims to bring together providers of courier and postal services, fast deliveries, as well as online retailers and providers of services and products.