Parcel delivery companies overwhelmed by volume of Czech online shopping

The daily Mlada fronta Dnes reports that Czech delivery services were unable to keep up with the level of demand that began with Advent. It writes that they've been forced to limit the number of orders they accept and they're warning that with the volume of demand rising, they're already running at between 90 and 100 percent of capacity. The paper quoted PPL as admitting that it was already running up to three days late with deliveries. DPD has ceased accepting orders above its daily limit and is now informing customers when it expects to be able to deliver by. GLS has stopped picking up packages from individuals and is requiring customers to bring their packages to pick-up points. "The whole coronavirus Christmas season has been the most demanding we've experiened in the company's ten-year history," said Milan Smid of Zasilkovna. "In normal months we make around 150,000 deliveries per day but now it's around 400,000." PPL told the newspaper that the combination of Black Friday and the government restrictions on retail had resulted in a 100 percent jump in demand from 2019.