PayPoint looking to expand CollectPlus to 7,000 stores by year-end
PayPoint’s Parcel Services Director Gary Winter has told Post&Parcel that plans are in place to expand the CollectPlus network of parcel pick-up and drop-off points to 7,000 locations by the end of 2017. The CollectPlus network currently has around 6,200 PUDO points, so this would represent a significant growth. However, as Winter explained, the company has a significant tool which it can use to power this expansion: the wider community of around 29,000 stores that are already equipped with PayPoint terminals.
Winter added that this means that even after the 7,000 target is reached this year, there will still be considerable scope for further growth in 2018 and beyond.
For stores equipped with PayPoint and CollectPlus, Winter continued, the parcel business is just one revenue stream of many This makes the proposition more commercially viable, as costs can be met by the stores’ core activities. Furthermore, the parcel service will drive up demand for those core activities, as many customers who come into the shops to collect their parcels will also take the opportunity to stock up on groceries and other items.
Alongside the expansion programme, PayPoint and Yodel are also in the process of opening up the CollectPlus network to make it “carrier agnostic”.
Last month, CollectPlus CEO Neil Ashworth told Post&Parcel that conversations have been taking place with potential new partner carriers.
Today, Winter confirmed that they have been speaking to “the vast majority of the top ten carriers in the UK” and they hope to reveal the first partner carrier “during the summer” with a view to be “transacting before peak”.
Winter added that they hope to be in position to announce a second partner carrier by the end of this year. When that happens, CollectPlus will have the credentials to justify its new billing as an “open” parcel network. A network that is open to multiple carriers, multiple retailers and, most importantly, customers, who will appreciate the convenience of consolidating their parcel collections and returns.
