Online shoppers in Germany can choose to have their e-commerce parcels delivered during two-hour time windows, including between 6-9 p.m., with a new program from from DHL Parcel.

“It is our goal to offer our services in all regions of the country and, in doing so, to make people’s lives easier,” DHL Parcel CEO Achim Dunnwald said when the service was announced Monday. “With the introduction of a nationwide evening delivery service, we are therefore setting new standards for the time-flexible receipt of parcels,” he said.

Deutsche Post DHL Group says the service lets online retailers better meet customer needs, and that merchants can offer the scheduled evening delivery throughout Germany and across 44 million households. “For the high-growth segment of online food retailing, for example, the option is especially interesting, since customers can have goods delivered at home promptly at the end of the working day,” DHL says.

DHL does not state what, if anything, a scheduled two-hour evening delivery will cost. The company could not be reached immediately for additional comment.

DHL is listed as the shipping carrier to 14 online retailers in the Europe 500, and DHL Express is the carrier for one, according to Top500Guide.com.

Germany, the world’s fourth-largest economy by gross domestic product and the largest in Europe, is home to 65 merchants in the Internet Retailer 2016 Europe 500, including Otto Group (No. 2) and Zalando SE (No. 7). Those 65 German online retailers generated 21.69 billion euros ($24.02 billion) in 2015 web sales, according to Top500Guide.com data.

A large courier’s ability to offer later delivery hours and narrow the window for delivery involves challenges, but “DHL is clearly making a strategic move toward providing new delivery services to improve the service level for consumers placing e-commerce orders,” says Marc Wulfraat, founder and president of supply chain consulting firm MWPVL International Inc.

“Large courier companies have very tight schedules that need to be adhered to because of the coordination of air, ground and sortation center resources. Thus the ability to extend hours later in the day may have a material impact on the number of drivers and trucks required,” he says. “As well, the ability to respond to customer-specific delivery windows represents a new scheduling and outbound route optimization challenge that is more complex and has the risk of increasing operating expenses if it is not managed appropriately,” Wulfraat says.

UPS Inc., through its My Choice program, enables a shopper to receive email and text alerts that tell her when a package will be delivered. More than 25 million global consumers use My Choice, which launched in 2011. In the United States only, a consumer can schedule a home delivery to arrive within a two-hour window. The service costs $8 per request.

FedEx Corp. with FedEx Delivery Manager, also lets users set delivery times for a fee of $5 per package for a specific date and $5 per package at a specified time. It’s $10 per package for delivery on a specific date at a specified time. 

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