Royal Mail are rolling out parcel postboxes in seven Oxfordshire postcodes, extending their postbox footprint further following the introduction of the UK’s first-ever parcel postboxes across the UK.
The postboxes boast a new look with a wider opening and secure design, ready for pre-paid parcels to enable merchants to send items to their shoppers easily.
The move follows a significant change to the supplier’s postboxes in 160 years, which highlights the evolving ecommerce market with shoppers expecting their parcels delivered faster than ever. However, this signals a challenge for suburban sellers who may lose time and money with posting offices being located far away or worse, not in their area.
Royal Mail head of campaigns Mark Street says the introduction of the first parcel postboxes in the Thames Valley area means that customers can now send parcels with pre-paid postage and their returns in the same way that they do letters. He says it provides added flexibility to online sellers who might be running a business in their spare time and not keeping regular office hours.
Parcel postboxes have been planted across Abingdon, Milton near Didcot, and across Banbury to accelerate the posting process, with seven postcodes including OX14 1DY, OX14 4RY, OX14 4SD, OX14 4SH, OX16 1RH, OX16 3JU, and OX16 4SP.
One Response
Come on Royal Mail, lets have some in Sussex. Surely an easy win would be to put them at main delivery / sorting depots around the country. At the big Gatwick RM depot there are thin-slot letter post boxes and franked mail boxes in a drive-through lay-by by the main gate. So a couple of these Small Parcel boxes there would be good there to kick off with. I have tried, without success, to find where any small parcel boxes may be on the RM website, possibly as there are not many and they are all in Oxfordshire at present.