The Post Office has announced a trial of over 150 new drop off points for Home Shopping customers returning orders using Royal Mail’s pre-paid returns services. The plan is to make life easier for shoppers to return orders placed during the peak period for Home shopping in the run up to Christmas. Roll out of the new points is expected to commence in the coming weeks.
Through trialling these new drop off points, alongside its current branches, the Post Office wants to encourage new customers to use its services by providing even greater convenience and choice as to where and when they return their orders.
In addition to taking returns into one of the Post Office’s 11,500 branches people will now have the choice to send their returns through these additional drop off points. Making sure they apply the pre-paid Royal Mail returns label provided by the retailer. The new drop off points will be based in existing retail outlets such as garages and convenience stores the majority of which will be open seven days a week.
Through its agreement with Royal Mail the Post Office offers access to the most convenient, trusted and reliable returns service in the UK. In fact, 71% of online shoppers say that the Post Office is their preferred method for returns.
The UK’s Home Shopping Market continues to grow with the value of the e-commerce market expected to increase from £91bn in 2013 to £107bn in 2014, with a trusted returns service being a core element of any online retailers offer.
Martin George Chief Commercial Officer, Post Office said: “Around one in ten online orders are returned so retailers need to ensure they provide a convenient, easy and reliable returns network. It’s a growing market and one in which the Post Office, through its unrivalled reach, is the market leader.
“We know people want the flexibility to choose where and when they return home shopping orders. We have the UK’s largest and most trusted returns network. Through trialling these new drop off points we want to make it easier for even more people to access our network by giving greater choice when retuning items.”
