Move towards e-commerce
Kiala is a network of pick-up points that allows consumers to pick up web shop orders or where they can send the items back to the shop. UPS bought the network in February 2012 to help move the company move towards e-commerce. At that time, Kiala had been introduced to Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France and Spain, but it has since then expanded into the United Kingdom and Germany. It has now surpassed 12,000 pick-up points worldwide.
The change will be gradual. Phase one will introduce a double name, mentioning both Kiala and UPS Access Point – which is already the case in the Netherlands, Spain and France. UPS stickers are present at every Kiala pick-up point in these countries and each package gets a “Kiala will become UPS Access Point” sticker to help spread the message. By 2016, the Kiala name should have fully disappeared.
UPS also intends to get several national networks to work together more closely. Since the end of June, Belgian, Luxembourgian and Dutch retailers and customers can offer a package, up to 15 euro, to a Kiala pick-up point and get it delivered all across Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France or Spain.