Australia Post meets online shopping growth with $82M parcel facility

Australia Post continues to meet the growing eCommerce demand, announcing plans to build an $82 million parcel facility in Perth that will be up and running by Christmas 2022.

The 23,000 sqm purpose-built facility will feature state-of-the-art automated sortation and the capacity to process 14,000 parcels per hour on its first day of operation.

Designed with future scalability in mind, the facility will be able to process up to 23,000 parcels per hour.

The new facility will be located in Welshpool near the existing Perth Parcel Centre site and Welshpool Business Hub, and will include an onsite parcel distribution centre.

Rodney Boys, Acting Group Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Australia Post, said the organisation’s $82 million commitment was part of its ongoing investment to meet the continued online shopping growth.

“Following last year’s investment of $450 million, Australia Post continues to invest to meet the phenomenal growth of 30.8 per cent year on year in online shopping with Australians spending more than $50 billion online last year,” Boys said.

“More recently, Western Australia’s online shopping grew 22.6 per cent in the 12 months to 31 August 2021 with close to one million WA households shopping online,” he said.

He explained that the high-speed sorting machinery and automation at the new facility will allow parcels to be processed faster and provide  customers with increased tracking visibility due to more scanning events.

He continued that this will also be safer for employees by significantly reducing manual handling.

Angus Becsi, Head of Operations in Western Australia at Australia Post, said the new investment showed that Australia Post was working hard to improve deliveries for West Australians while the challenges of the pandemic continue.

“Impacts in other states do have a flow-on effect with our operations, so we know we need to keep investing in Western Australia to meet our customers’ needs and help us to deliver as efficiently as possible,” Becsi said.

Besci also revealed that AusPost is also planning to deliver a new facility in Butler in October 2022, which will replace the current delivery centre in Clarkson.

The new Australia Post parcel facility is the latest in the organisation’s investment to meet the country’s ongoing surge in online shopping. In August 2021, AusPost partnered with 7-Eleven to open access to 1,000 parcel pick-up locations for Australia Post customers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Source: Australia Post newsroom