Royal Mail and the Post Office will launch later this year the UK’s largest ‘click and collect’ network to support online shopping growth aiming to provide convenient parcel delivery options for online retailers and their customers.
The Post Office has the largest retail network in the UK, making them ideal locations to provide convenient, secure parcel collection facilities. 99% of the population lives within three miles of a Post Office branch. Around 10,500 Post Offices will be taking part in the initiative which will enable online retailers to offer shoppers the opportunity to order items for collection at their local branch.
The Post Office is modernising its network. More and more of its branches are opening for longer and more than 4,000 will offer access to items ordered through click and collect outside the usual Post Office opening hours. With many branches open seven days a week, the Post Office network can offer even greater convenience for customers collecting their online shopping.
Of course the Post Office isn’t convenient to everyone which is why retailers should offer a choice of delivery options but your Post Office is probably closer than your nearest Royal Mail Delivery Office and certainly will have much longer opening hours.
Royal Mail do of course also offer delivery to home, or to a neighbour for safekeeping which is likely to remain the preference for the vast majority of customers and Royal Mail expect this to continue to be the case. Choice is important though and for some, Click and Collect is preferable to knocking on a neighbours door looking for their parcel.
Royal Mail is currently talking to a number of large online retailers about integrating this service into their websites later this year and plan to extend the Click and Collect service to smaller retailers in 2014.
42 Responses
What??!! Most Post Offices close at 5pm where as the local sorting office is open till 8pm.
Across Rural Britain most Villages have a Post Office. The nearest sorting office is often many miles away. Again in Rural Britain many Village Post Offices form a part of the Village Shop and Post Office.
So even if the Post Office Counter is closed the rest of the Shop is still open. So it may be possible to arrange it that out of Post Office Counter Opening Times it is still possible to call and obtain a parcel.
Depending on the arrangements across the country it could be a potentially good system. But there is a problem. Over the years many Local Villages and indeed Urban Communities have lost their Post Office. My own Village does not have a Post Office. My nearest Post Office is some 3 miles away from my Village.
So in communities like mine it would require the re-opening of our local Post Office to be of any benefit to my Village. So come on Post Office lets be having a campaign to re-open Post Offices across the Country.
“which will enable online retailers to offer shoppers the opportunity to order items for collection at their local branch”
In our experience a lot of our customers have to do this already…
Good. I am a big fan of Royal Mail, and its good to see them waking up to the threats from people like Collect Plus.
Cambridge_Blue admits that he is a Townie. Nothing wrong with that. He seems also to admit that he knows little or nothing about Rural Areas. Again nothing wrong with that. But yet he is very happy to comment often forcibly about Rural Areas and their Problems. I would certainly argue against that. After all I wonder if he would be all that impressed if I was to comment about something that he knows a great deal about and I knew little. My guess is that he would think me a fool…as I do about him in regard to Rural Areas and their Problems.
As to me or indeed any other Post Office Customer having to swim a River to get to the Post Office. May I remind him that not all Post Office Users are Olympic Swimmers many are little old ladies or indeed like me (Not so) Little Old Men. Some 40 years or so ago I might have taken swimming a River as a challenge today I might require a Lifeboat to be in attendance.
There you go again. You admit that you know nothing about the Rural Communities that you are so happy to comment(badly) about. Yet you seem to think that you know far more than me. I suspect that in reality you know little but bluster a lot.
In regard to floating gracefully across any River in the Land to get to the nearest Post Office. To even attempt it would no doubt break numerous Health and Safety Regulations no matter who was attempting it.
All across the Country there are many thousands of Parish Councillors. Some I will admit may fit your description. However the vast majority of those that I have met certainly do not. The vast majority live in a Parish and want to put something back into the Parish. Many have families that have inhabited the Parish for generations I cannot make that claim having only lived here for about 30 years.
However if you go into the local Parish Church and walk around the Churchyard the same surnames keep repeating and often they are the same surnames of the current Parish Councillors.
Yet you are very happy to insult all of these hard working men and women whose roots go back generations and love their Parishes. You make it clear that not only are you so like Chairman Mao in other ways but you are of the same opinion as him about Democracy. In your case because you know little or nothing about Democracy you make totally ignorant attacks upon it and all those like myself who try so hard to put something back into our Community. You really are a totally appalling individual. Totally beyond contempt.
The old adage has it that we’re never more than six feet away from a parish councillor lol
Parish Councillors are just ordinary men and women. We do not wear badges or carry any other sign of being elected. You could walk past us in the Supermarket or on the High Street or even sit next to us on the Bus or Train and not realise that we are Parish Councillors. Yet in our own communities we are trying to do what ever we can to improve the lot of our friends and neighbours.
Remember also that Parish Councillors are not paid and few ever even claim expences for anything that they do. It is almost all Voluntary because we love our Communities. In my case in 6 years as a Parish Councillor I have not claimed one single penny in expences and neither has any of my colleagues on the Parish Council.
It will probably not be in major ways. We might see a pothole in the road and campaign to get it filled and repaired. A drain that should have got cleaned out but which got missed and we were told that it would not be cleaned out for 12 months or perhaps we just campaigned for a Childrens Play Area in our Village. Not major earth shattering things but things that go a little way to making life just that little better for our Community.
If these are not to be done by the Parish Council who else would do them? Local Bureaucrats!! Often it is the Local Bureaucrats that we have to fight to get them done. Let me quote just one example. The road surface through my Village was falling to pieces. Yet the County Road Engineers were telling us that the surface was in good condition. After months of hard work they finally agreed to send somebody out to look. He examined the road and confirmed that we were right and the County Road Engineers were wrong. So finally after months of hard work we finally got a new road surface.
If it hadn’t been for the Parish Council(including me) the old road surface would still be in place and deteriorated from dangerous to just plain lethal. The only problem is that we have been told that the next time it is our turn to have the road re-surfaced my Grandchildren(or even Great Grand Children) might be the local Parish Councillor.
I must admit that it is quite a while since I have seen the name northumbrian on a posting. Welcome back. I must admit that I have thought that one or two other names might be northumbrian under a different identity. However welcome back.
yep just thought we might post now and then with. a name that has made its living on ebay for the last 15 years that someone from ebay might just give some credence to when we whinge about them
Hello chaps,
When it comes to names from the past and hope for the present, I offer some advice:
get a room.
🙂
Best regards,
Henry Nutford
C/O
The South Down’s Beekeepers’ Care Fund
East Dean Home for the Bewildered
help nurse! nurse! that fella with a dual identity has escaped his straight jacket again
Hermes are increasing their prices from next week.
https://www.myhermes.co.uk/wps/portal/PN_CTR/Home/information