Yodel pledges shoppers will get Sunday deliveries

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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One of Britain's biggest parcel firms may launch a seven-day home-delivery service that would provide a massive lift to the already booming sector.

Yodel, which became the second-biggest parcel delivery firm after a merger earlier this year between Home Delivery Network and DHL Domestic, is assessing the possibility of a Sunday service next year.

Chief executive Jonathan Smith said: 'People can order whenever they want, so what we are trying to do is to make deliveries as flexible as possible. This is part of the jigsaw.'

Other firms are also considering the move, according to chief retail and consumer adviser Christine Cross at accountancy group PricewaterhouseCoopers.

'This is about instant gratification,' she said. 'The faster you can get hold of an item, the more exciting it becomes.
'Lots of online shopping is already done during the evenings and at weekends. This would be like opening up the shop on a Sunday.'

Cross said that internet shopping was following a similar pattern to that of supermarkets when they discovered that opening later, on Sundays and finally round the clock was helping to take market share from local shops and late-opening convenience stores.

Royal Mail's Parcelforce service said that it had not ruled out Sunday deliveries if it identified a demand.

The spokesman said that union opposition to Sunday working was not an issue as most of its employees were owner-drivers.

'We have worked on Sundays in the past, particularly in the lead-up to Christmas,' he said.

Figures to be released this month by the British Retail Consortium are expected to confirm that the internet market is growing at more than ten per cent a month, in contrast to reports of flagging High Street sales.

That has been boosted in part by the addition of 'click and collect' services by retailers and the Collect Plus scheme that

[POSTMAN]

It's started,more contracts to be lost becuse of this?

[Lounge Lizard]

"is assessing the possibility of" in a cunning press release becomes "will get" in the misleading headline.
I'll believe it when I see their Sunday deliveries. - a bit like TNT twenty or so years ago saying they would have a postbox on every street corner.