One innovative Post Office branch opens at 5am

One Post Office branch in Cross Heath is now open from 5am until 7pm six days a week in a bid to offer customer convenience.

They’re open 5am to 7pm Monday to Saturday and from 5am to 2pm on Sundays.

According to the Stoke Sentinel newspaper, the post office and convenience store in the Cross Heath area of Newcastle-under-Lyme is run by Monica Patel-Radia and husband Rakesh Radia, who took over the business a year ago.

Monica said of the post office branch and convenience store: “Before, the shop was open for shorter hours than we are now. We wanted to be the only place open at that time in the area to make it more convenient for our customers.”

“People are finding the longer hours really useful. We have a wide range of customers coming in very early to drop off parcels, post their mail, banking, pensions, car tax, money transfers and bill payments. We do everything a full Post Office does apart from passports.”

It’s obvious how this could be a useful service for early bird marketplace sellers who still use the post office for dispatches. It could offer sellers who also work in full time jobs the opportunity to drop off their sales on the way to work or even before, during or after the school run.

Of course, it doesn’t mean that parcels will arrive any more quickly through the Royal Mail network. A parcel dropped off at 5am on a Sunday morning won’t get there any more quickly than one despctahed at a PO at Monday midday. But it is heartening to see innovative business people experimenting with different ideas that will be convenient to many.

As we wrote in another piece about Royal Mail, the national postal network consisting of Royal Mail and the Post Office desperately needs to embrace new practices if it is to prosper and survive in the ecommerce age. This is a good example of how they can change.

Would you like your local post office branch to offer more flexible opening hours?