Post Office and DPD sign click-and-collect delivery deal
The Post Office is teaming up with French van delivery company DPD for click-and-collect services in the national mail service’s first partnership in its 360-year history.
From next week, customers will be able to choose to get their parcels delivered by DPD couriers directly to a Post Office branch.
As employees return to offices, the Post Office hopes to cash in on click-and-collect options near their workplaces over home deliveries. Even pre-pandemic, the market for click-and-collect was increasing by 14 per cent per year.
The partnership with DPD, owned by the French post office La Poste, is the Post Office’s first-ever formal agreement with an external carrier. Previously, the firm only had an agreement with Royal Mail for parcel collections at its branches.
The Post Office sees the click-and-collect boom as an opportunity to reduce last-mile deliveries and future-proof the sustainability of the network. Compared to home deliveries, click-and-collect represents an average 63 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases, according to DPD.
For Nick Read, chief executive at the Post Office, the partnership provides “greater customer convenience, footfall for postmasters and helps people back to the High Street as Covid-19 restrictions ease.”
Elaine Kerr, DPD’s chief executive said it “will play an important role in cities and towns across the UK in reducing the environmental impact of having vans making multiple stops to drop off parcels, whilst at the same time encouraging people to return to their local high street on foot.”
The service will be initially available at 250 Post Office branches this month. It will be rolled out to 1,500 of its 11,500 branches across the country ahead of Christmas.