Amazon UK have just announced their first ever same day collection service as part of an expansion of their Pick-Up Location programme.
Customers will be able to purchase products and pick up their order later that day as a result of a collaboration with newspaper and magazine distributor Smiths News.
Smiths have branded the service as “Pass my Parcel” and more than 500 newsagents and convenience stores will carry ‘Pass my Parcel’ branding to highlight the service to customers. For a limited time, Amazon Prime members will be able to use this new pick-up service free of charge.
Same-Day collection allows customers to order as late as 11.45am for collection from 4pm. Customers are notified via email when their order is available and they can collect their parcel up to 11.59pm, depending on the store closing time.
In addition to Same-Day collection, customers also have the option of Express Morning collection with orders placed up to 7.45pm being available for guaranteed collection the next morning – their parcel will be delivered from 6.30am and no later than 9am depending on the store opening time.
Customers who aren’t members of Amazon Prime can opt for Same-Day collection or Express Morning collection for just £4.99 for a limited time.
Amazon now offers more than 6,000 pick-up locations including ‘Pass my Parcel’ stores, Collect+ stores and Amazon Lockers. Deliveries made to Amazon Lockers nationally have more than doubled in the last year as customers continue to enjoy the flexibility the service provides.
It’s worth noting that Pass My Parcel is a a new wholly owned Smiths News parcel delivery service and Amazon is their launch client. We can expect to see more retailers using the service in the future.
Whilst Amazon haven’t confirmed, we’d expect that if you have products in FBA that these too would be made available to buyers on the new Same-Day collection or Express Morning collection services.
If like me you go rushing to Amazon to test the new service you may be disappointed. Amazon are introducing the service on a gradual basis and whilst a few may be able to see it today, more buyers will be added by Monday and it will ramp up over time until all customers are able to use it.
3 Responses
Which is exactly what ebay should have done with thier Click and Collect service! they have played into Argos’s hands, and really missed an opportunity with thier established collect+ connection.
ebay have poorly thought out feedback and defect algorithms, and inflexible seller and buyer protection arrangements to cope with this Amazon type initiative. If ebay can’t think of a way of controlling sellers and buyers and generating fee revenue with an initiative then the idea will be a non starter.
The difference between Amazon and ebay is that Amazon actually sell stuff and want to increase sales of stuff to profit directly. ebay want to increase fee revenue and have an entirely different mindset at work.
I wonder how this will affect Amazon’s decision to build fulfilment centres in economically deprived areas, far from the south of England?
Given that almost all Amazon locker locations sell newspapers and magazines it would make sense for Smiths to run the delivery chain for these (this may happen, my locker deliveries have TNT labels on them but I don’t live in an area served by Smiths).