Scottish parcel summit highlights rural delivery challenges

Scotland’s enterprise minister, Fergus Ewing, brought together parcel carriers and major retailers on Friday, to discuss how to improve home delivery – particularly in rural areas. The summit in Inverness followed on from warnings issued by consumer watchdog Consumer Focus Scotland in August suggesting nearly a third of people in Scotland have trouble receiving packages.

Complaints highlighted in the research include inconvenient opening hours at local delivery offices, and that collection points are too far away.

Rural households have objected to paying high surcharges, or carriers even refusing delivery outright.

Among those present at Friday’s summit were Royal Mail and Parcelforce as well as AJG Parcels, a local firm specializing in delivery within the Scottish Highlands and islands, which has its hub in Inverness.

The summit also included involvement from major retailers including Tesco, Argos, Homebase and Habitat.

It allowed carriers and retailers to discuss their challenges in servicing rural households, as well as detailing concerns from consumers themselves.

Chairing the summit, the minister backed calls for online retailers to offer a “fair deal” to people in Scotland when it comes to parcel delivery, and make delivery charges clearer in the purchase process.

“We would encourage delivery companies to display costs clearly prior to sale and to make sure that charges are based on costs incurred,” said Ewing.

“This is particularly important in the run-up to the festive season, when many people in rural Scotland order goods online and expect them to be delivered in time for Christmas Day.”

“Constructive”

Consumer Focus Scotland, which convened the summit, said it was concerned about rural consumers facing higher delivery costs, but also about a lack of transparency about delivery charges, which it said led to confused consumers.

Consumer Focus Scotland spokesperson Karen Jordan told Post&Parcel today that the summit had proven “very constructive”, with “high level commitment” expressed by those involved to continue working to improve delivery services in Scotland.

“We expect to continue to work to involve more parcel carriers and online retailers in this process,” she said. “We want to come up with some solutions and use the Highlands as a pilot area, showing what can be done in rural parts of Scotland and the rest of the UK.”

Jordan added that hopes were that a future parcel summit further down the road would be convened at the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood, “to continue the momentum”.

Gordon Robb, trading standards manager at Highland Council, one of the most rural local authorities in the UK and one that has been challenging complaints against parcel delivery surcharges, said he hoped Friday’s summit would lead to solutions being developed in the parcel industry.

“More complaints about unfair delivery charges continue to be received every week,” he said. “We have had a number of publicised successes to date, but much work remains to be done.”