Post Office and Gift Voucher Shop join forces with top UK retailers to deliver new gift voucher service

The Post Office® and The Gift Voucher Shop today announce an exciting new gift voucher service to help lift some of the gloom surrounding declining high street retail sales.

The new gift voucher service will be available at all of the 14,600 Post Office® branches nationwide, giving the 28 million customers who visit the Post Office® every week access to an extensive range of high street retailers. Vouchers will be available for a number of major brands including B&Q, Comet, Debenhams, Habitat, Halfords, Goldsmiths, Miss Selfridge, Mothercare, River Island, Topshop and Woolworths.

Customers will also be able to buy “enjoyment” and “experience” vouchers, which enable the recipient to choose from a number of exciting activities such as enjoying a day at a theme park, indulging themselves in a health spa, drinking fine wines at Vinopolis, or experiencing the thrill of getting behind the wheel of a Ferrari.

Gift vouchers will also be available to purchase over the phone and online making it as easy as possible for consumers, including people living outside of the UK, to find and send a gift they can be sure friends and relatives will really want.

Announcing the launch, Derek Rocholl, Head of Payment Services at Post Office Ltd, said: “We believe the new service will be very popular with our customers and stimulate an increase in the total size of the current UK gifting market. Around 94 per cent of the population live within a mile of a Post Office® branch making the service especially convenient for consumers and owners of small businesses across the country who want to buy a gift for friends, family or employees that they can be sure will be appreciated. We also expect our proposition to be very attractive to people living or working abroad who want to send gifts directly to friends and family in the UK and Northern Ireland.”

Working in partnership with The Gift Voucher Shop, the company that successfully launched Ireland’s multi-retailer gift voucher scheme with An Post (the Irish postal service operator), the Post Office® aims to create a whole new market for gift vouchers. The Post Office® expects hundreds of retailers to sign up over the next couple of years, from large brands to smaller independent merchants.

Michael Dawson, Managing Director at The Gift Voucher Shop, said: “The launch of gift vouchers with An Post in Ireland was extremely successful and has a seen sales volume growth of over 150 per cent every year since its launch in 2002. There are now over 550 Irish merchants on board.

“We are extremely pleased to be partnering with the Post Office® on this new offering for the UK market and aim to replicate the success we’ve had in Ireland. Working with a retailer that holds such a well-respected brand and vast branch network presents us with an very exciting opportunity.”

Post Office® gift vouchers and gift cards will be available in demoninations of £10, £20, £25, £30, £40, £50, £75 and £100 and presented in an attractive gift wallet. Customers will be able to use cash, debit card, credit card and Post Office® saving stamps to buy gift vouchers and cards at any of the 14,600 Post Office® branches across the UK and Northern Ireland. Gift vouchers will also be available by phone (08700 844 44 44) or on-line via the Post Office® website www.postoffice.co.uk or directly via The Gift Voucher Shop website www.giftvouchershop.co.uk. Each gift voucher purchased carries a £1.50 fee.

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Derek Rocholl, Head of Payment Services at Post Office Ltd and Michael Dawson, Managing Director at The Gift Voucher Shop are available for interviews.

For more information please contact:

Cohn & Wolfe
Marlon Cumberbatch 020 7331 5402
[email protected]
Lisa Crane 020 7331 5474
[email protected]
Post Office Ltd
Hayley Fowell 020 7320 7440
[email protected]
Ruth Barker 020 7320 7238
[email protected]

Notes to Editors
Merchants signed up to the scheme are as follows:

Retail

B&Q
Burton
Comet
Debenhams
Dorothy Perkins
Evans
Goldsmiths
Habitat
Halfords
Miss Selfridge
Mothercare
Outfit
River Island
Topman
Topshop
Wallis
Woolworths

Experiences4all

Experience More
Virgin Experience Days

Enjoyment4all

Best Magazines
Hoverspeed
Drifters
Park Resorts
Fishing Breaks
Radisson Edwardian Hotels
Fitness First
Thomas Cook
2 for 1 Golf Courses
Undersiege Paintball
Go Ten Pin
Warner Breaks
Haven Holidays
Champneys
Victoria’s Beauty
Nailcraft
Aerialextreme
Eureka
Beatles Story
Flamingoland
Bateaux London
Fleet Air Arm
Blackpool Pleasure Beach
Ironbridge
Brean Leisure Park
Legoland Windsor
Camelot Theme Park
Lightwater Valley
Catamaran Cruisiers
London Eye
Drayton Manor
London Pass
Dudley Zoo
Visit Magna
Man United
The Original Tour
Sealife Europe
Weald and Downland Open Air Museum
Sea Life Sanctuaries
South Lakes Wild Animal Park
National Space Centre
Wookey Hole
The Dungeons
Vinopolis
Arbuckles
Navajo Joes
Cactus Blue
Palm Court
Jim Thompson’s
Sticky Fingers
KRO
Thorntons
Laithwaites
Thresher
Maxwell’s
Yellow River Cafés

About the Post Office®
With 14,600 branches across the country, the Post Office® is the UK’s largest retail and financial services chain in the UK. Its network is larger than all of the UK’s banks and building societies put together. Around 94 per cent of the UK population lives within a mile of a Post Office® branch and 28 million customers visit every week.

In conjunction with its partners, the Post Office® offers over 170 products and services including travel and financial services (including personal loans, car, home and travel insurance), banking services, bill payments, HomePhone (its home telephone service), lottery products, licence applications, phonecards and mobile phone top-ups, and postal services. It is the largest supplier of foreign currency in the UK and is a leading provider of travel insurance.

The Post Office® is also the biggest cash handler in the country – with more than £92 billion passing through its hands each year. 17p in every £1 in circulation goes through a Post Office® branch and around 400 million household bills are paid at Post Office® branches each year.

In the year ending March 2005, the Post Office Ltd total turnover was £1,287 million. Post Office Ltd is a separate limited company within the Royal Mail Group.

To find out where your nearest Post Office® branch is call 08457-223 344.

About the Gift Voucher Shop
The Gift Voucher Shop operates in a number of countries providing the consumer the choice and convenience of a one stop shop for gift vouchers through the relevant national Post Office® network alongside telesales and web.

Established in September 2002 by Michael Dawson, The Gift Voucher Shop provides the most comprehensive choice of gift vouchers available in the Irish market today. More than 550 businesses with over 3,000 outlets across the country now sell their gift vouchers through the Gift Voucher Shop.

This initiative enables the Irish consumer to purchase gift vouchers for a huge variety of shops and services with the greatest ease and convenience.

The Irish online experience can be viewed by visiting the online shop, www.giftvouchershop.ie