Royal Mail to open 8,000 high street shops

[TopperGas]

Royal Mail to open 8,000 high street shops for the first time in huge £43.9million deal:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/36869665 ... pp_article

The new high street shops will be open for collecting, sending and returning parcels.

Plus, they'll be selling Royal Mail postage over the counter for the first time - meaning customers can pay in person rather than online beforehand.

Vinted users can already have their parcels delivered to the locations, with more retailers expected to follow in the near future.

The shops will have extended hours including evenings and weekends.


That means it will be more convenient than ever for people to send off their parcels.

Some 500 shops have already been rebranded but they will be rolled out more widely in the coming months.

Self-service kiosks are set to be installed in some locations from the beginning of 2026.

Royal Mail's owner International Distribution Services said it had acquired a 49% stake in Collect+ with a £43.9million investment.

Alistair Cochrane, Royal Mail's chief executive, said: "The launch of the Royal Mail Shop brand creates a new and improved high street destination for all of our customers' parcel needs in one location.

"This investment is one of the ways we're making Royal Mail more convenient."

Royal Mail’s Delivery Shake-Up: Major Changes Announced

Collect+ currently lets you drop off or pick up parcels at more than 14,000 locations across the country.

The locations include newsagents, convenience stores, supermarkets and petrol stations.

The latest move from Royal Mail comes after it revealed it was back in profit for the first time in three years.

The postal service delivered £12million in earnings for the year to March 31, excluding redundancy costs — a huge turnaround from last year’s £336million loss.

But with job-cut costs included, Royal Mail still remained in the red with underlying operating losses of £8million.

The postal service implemented a huge shake-up over the summer aimed at cutting costs.

It has started delivering second class letters on alternate weekdays and not on Saturdays.

Previous rules had meant the postal service had to deliver post six days a week, from Monday to Saturday.

It was also required to drop off parcels on five days from Monday to Friday.

However the industry regulator had decided a shake-up was needed as stamp prices have been rising and the cost of delivering letters has gone up.

It means that while first-class mail should land on doorsteps six days a week as usual, households will see a difference in how quickly their second-class post is delivered.

When the change was made in July, Royal Mail said it would first be trialling it in 37 of its 1,200 delivery offices.


This seems an odd move when the business has previously been restricting the opening hours of every CSP, including any on the high street?

[Jefferson Starfish]

They're clearly just making use of existing convenience stores, etc just like Evri and others have done for years.

[TopperGas]

They're clearly just making use of existing convenience stores, etc just like Evri and others have done for years.

RM already use Collect+ this seems a step further and the stores are now going to be rebranded "Royal Mail", I'm not sure what that means for Evri etc customers, can they still use them or will they only accept RM parcels?

Our local store has been "#### News" for as long as I can remember, so it'll be interesting to see if it's rebranded to "Royal Mail"

Anyway so much for the CWU claiming RM have no money when they can spend £48m on this deal.

[POSTMAN]

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ds-parcels



Royal Mail owner to rebrand thousands of Collect+ stores as it buys stake

International Distribution Services to create Royal Mail Shops for collecting, sending and returning parcels

Thousands of convenience stores will be branded Royal Mail Shop, after the delivery company’s new owner acquired a stake in the parcel network Collect+, in the first big deal since it was taken over by a Czech billionaire.

The Royal Mail owner, International Distribution Services (IDS), which was taken over by Daniel Křetínský’s EP Group in April in a £3.6bn deal, said it had bought a 49% stake in Collect+ for £43.9m, which offers access to almost 8,000 pickup points – newsagents, convenience stores, supermarkets and petrol stations.

The launch of Royal Mail Shop puts its brand directly on the high street, with customers able to collect, send and return parcels. Significantly, the shops will be open during evenings and weekends, unlike many Post Office branches.

Shops will sell Royal Mail postage, initially just Tracked 24 and Tracked 48, with more products to follow. This means customers can pay in person rather than online.

The move comes two years after Royal Mail lost a 360-year-old monopoly on delivering parcels from Post Office branches, after Evri and DPD signed deals.

The Royal Mail service is available in 500 shops and will be rolled out more widely in the coming months.

Royal Mail and Collect+ first partnered in May last year, allowing Royal Mail customers to drop off returns and pre-paid parcels at Collect+ shops across the UK. The stores will continue to accept other carriers’ parcels for pre-paid drop off and collection.

Last month, Vinted became Royal Mail’s first partner to offer its customers collection from the stores.

The shops are part of Royal Mail’s network of almost 24,000 parcel points – including 2,000 lockers, 11,500 Post Office branches, 1,200 Royal Mail customer service points and 1,400 parcel postboxes.

Alistair Cochrane, the interim chief executive of Royal Mail, said: “The launch of the Royal Mail Shop brand creates a new and improved high street destination for all of our customers’ parcel needs in one location.

“This investment is one of the ways we’re making Royal Mail more convenient. We have the UK’s largest network of out-of-home parcel points – from lockers to solar-powered postboxes – and we’re focused on being the nearest and simplest choice for our customers.”

Collect+ was set up as a joint-venture between PayPoint and Yodel in 2009, and PayPoint later acquired full ownership for £6m in 2020. Yodel, a delivery service based in Liverpool, was owned by the billionaire brothers David and Frederick Barclay and acquired by InPost in April.

IDS’s investment in the parcel network comes as it pulls back on letter deliveries. Royal Mail will drop second-class letter deliveries on Saturdays and change the service to every other weekday from 28 July.

Royal Mail missed its targets by delivering nearly a quarter of first-class mail late in the three months to 29 June. Křetínský pledged to give the postal service “a fresh start” with a focus on the booming demand for parcel services.

[TopperGas]

It looks from that photo just like a Post Office but with "Royal Mail Shop" over the door, it seems a strange move to go back to having retail shops when the high st itself seems to be dying.

[Mr Rush]

JFC. Time is cyclical. There is little I have seen disappear from the job that hasn't come back twenty years later. The bikes'll be back any day now.

Anyway so much for the CWU claiming RM have no money when they can spend £48m on this deal.

No no. This is proof the company is so cash-strapped it couldn't afford to buy-out the Post Office!

[TopperGas]

JFC. Time is cyclical. There is little I have seen disappear from the job that hasn't come back twenty years later. The bikes'll be back any day now.

Anyway so much for the CWU claiming RM have no money when they can spend £48m on this deal.

No no. This is proof the company is so cash-strapped it couldn't afford to buy-out the Post Office!

You must have missed the Goto 30 video where was suggested 150 DO's are due to receive electric trikes, which are the modern day version of the bike.

I did wonder why RM didn't just do a deal with the Post Office but still being government owned my have complicated matters.

[SkiSunday]

You must have missed the Goto 30 video where was suggested 150 DO's are due to receive electric trikes, which are the modern day version of the bike.

Electric trikes/bikes can cover 40 times the distance of a bike with zero fatigue, therefore posties can deliver 40 times the amount stuff in the same time..

[funkflex55]

You must have missed the Goto 30 video where was suggested 150 DO's are due to receive electric trikes, which are the modern day version of the bike.

Electric trikes/bikes can cover 40 times the distance of a bike with zero fatigue, therefore posties can deliver 40 times the amount stuff in the same time..

If you keep coming up with these great ideas RM will make you a manager

[SkiSunday]

You must have missed the Goto 30 video where was suggested 150 DO's are due to receive electric trikes, which are the modern day version of the bike.

Electric trikes/bikes can cover 40 times the distance of a bike with zero fatigue, therefore posties can deliver 40 times the amount stuff in the same time..

If you keep coming up with these great ideas RM will make you a manager

Only if I can deliver 200 tracked

[BenacreNick]

Post Offices surely ?

[TopperGas]

Post Offices surely ?

One PO owner was worrying last week that the new parcel post box might take all their parcel business, I wonder what they'll think if one these "RM Shops" opens up nearby and then takes all their RM business?

[Idk]

Didn't we have those in every sorting office, called a collection desk?

[yellowbelly]

An 'office' where you can 'post' stuff? Wow, that's a breakthrough, why didn't someone think of that before?