I would like to tell you about the delivery service in Ukraine, which simplified life not only for private clients, but also gave a huge impetus to the development of e-commerce and not only. I will also give a small comparison with the Spanish postal service “Correos” which is 295 years older than the “Nova Poshta”.

The history of “Nova Poshta” began in February 2001, when university friends Vyacheslav Klimov and Vladimir Popereshnyuk decided to found a common business. Both were 25 years old. Vladimir’s small confectionery business helped to choose a market niche. He was just looking for ways to transport goods from Poltava to Ukraine. This is how young entrepreneurs got the idea to offer Ukrainians a new service – fast and convenient delivery.

The start-up capital of “Nova Poshta” was $ 7,000, and the team initially included 7 people.

Within the framework of the company, several development vectors have been formed, among which is the international direction (“Nova Poshta Global”). In 2014, “Nova Poshta” opened representative offices in Georgia and Moldova, and a year later entered the international delivery market.

For Ukrainians, “Nova Poshta” has ceased to be just a delivery service. The new corporate structure is a group of companies that provide clients with a range of logistics and related services. Today, in the branches you can not only receive / send a parcel or cargo and order targeted delivery, but also make an electronic money transfer through the ForPost cash desks, and order a fulfillment service.

“Nova Poshta”, along with Privat24 and OLX, is one of the three pillars on which practically all e-commerce in Ukraine rests upon. Today, “Nova Poshta” already processes 14 million parcels per month, and in order to cope with the constant growth in the number of parcels, it needs modern sorting terminals (now the company has 40 of them). The new terminal called KIT (Kiev Innovation Terminal) cost the company 15 million euros and was opened last year. Now they are preparing to launch new queues of the terminal, which will further increase its throughput. According to the company’s employees, their goal is to process up to a million parcels per day at KIT. This is the level of the largest terminals in the world.

In front of the entrance to the terminal, Slavuta’s car is installed on a pedestal. An interesting story is connected with it. This is the very first car of “Nova Poshta”, which at first played the role of both a truck and a representative vehicle. Today, this car is alive, daily reminder of how you can create a huge logistics company out of nothing. In the era of globalization and the total Internet, logistics is a real circulatory system of the economy.

The terminal uses equipment from Vanderlande, the world leader in the automation of logistics processes. Its equipment is used in many airports around the world.

Now the terminal has 199 gates with ramps for receiving trucks. The next step is the construction of new lines capable of increasing capacities and serving the constantly growing needs of Ukrainians in sending parcels. For the last 7 years, the company has been growing by 30-50% annually.

Thanks to the fast and relatively affordable delivery in Ukraine, a huge number of “Instagram shops” have appeared, which undoubtedly positively influenced the development of small businesses in the country.

Now I will make a small comparison between “Nova Poshta” and the “Correos”.

For example, let’s imagine that we need to send a box weighing 5kg and measuring 20x30x50 cm between two major cities.

The parcel will be delivered from Dnipro to Lviv (990 km) the next day, if the parcel is sent before 12:00. If you send it from 12:00 to 18:00, the package will arrive in two days.

Spanish service “Correos” Delivers a parcel of the same size and weight from Bilbao to Seville (930 km) in 3 days. In order for the parcel to be delivered within 24 hours, you must select a separate more expensive tariff.

I did not find information about the insurance of the parcel in Spain, but Nova Poshta offers insurance for the parcel of any amount. To do this, you must indicate the cost of the parcel and the calculator will show the cost of insurance. For example, for just 0.10 cents, the 30 euros valued parcel will be insured. And if the parcel is lost or damaged, the full cost will be refunded.

There is no Amazon in Ukraine. But with the help of “Nova Poshta”, you can order any product from the USA or Europe. “Nova Poshta” provides addresses of their branches in Europe or USA and when making an order you put their provided address, then they deliver your parcel to Ukraine.

And now some statistics:

In Spain, which has an area of ​​505 990 km², 2400 branches of “Correos” and in Ukraine, which occupies 603 628 km², 7200 branches of “Nova Poshta”.

CORREOS Group has distributed over 196.5 million parcels in 2019. Of these, CORREOS has distributed 129.32 million parcels.

During the same year, “Nova Poshta” delivered 212 million parcels.