Royal Mail to launch Sunday parcel delivery trial this weekend
Royal Mail launches its new trial Sunday delivery service this weekend, for addresses in and around London. The move aims to make it easier for online shoppers to receive their parcels if they’re working during the week.
The privatised postal service will also be piloting new Sunday opening hours for 100 of its delivery offices across the UK, allowing customers to pick up undelivered parcels seven days per week.
Nick Landon, the Royal Mail Parcels managing director, said: “We are continuing to be more customer responsive and provide more options for people to receive items they have ordered online.”
Royal Mail currently delivers mail and parcels six days a week, with its network of 1,400 delivery offices open six days a week.
About 1,600 of the 11,800 Post Office branches across the UK currently open on Sundays, and this summer Royal Mail’s express-parcels subsidiary Parcelforce Worldwide began delivering on Sundays.
Last month, Royal Mail revealed plans to make its click and collect service, Local Collect, available through Post Offices for its 20,000 SME contract customers. This will see customers shopping from small and medium-sized e-retailers able to collect items from and of the 10,500 Post Office branches taking part.
Trial
On the new trial, Royal Mail will extend Sunday opening hours to delivery offices in areas where there are the highest parcel volumes in England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. The participating delivery offices will open on Sundays between 12pm and 4pm.
The new Sunday delivery service will extend to addresses within the M25 motorway. It has the backing of the Communication Workers Union, which represents more than 115,000 non-managerial staff at Royal Mail.
The union said the expanded service would make it easier for shoppers to receive their parcels.
“Royal Mail employees are keen to work with the company to improve services for customers. Delivering on Sunday is an important initiative and one of the ways in which Royal Mail, with the help of its workers, is modernising,” said Dave Ward, the CWU deputy general secretary.
“We’ve negotiated that staff can opt to work on Sundays voluntarily and we’ve ensured they are properly compensated. We have worked hard to make sure that Royal Mail is committed to using full and part-time staff rather than agency workers.”
Royal Mail’s parcels business saw its revenue decline by 1% in the first quarter of this year, despite the overall growth in the British e-commerce sector. The company said last month that the result was impacted particularly by growing competition in the consumer/SME parcels segment.
