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Royal Mail aims to cash in on a booming second-hand online market by altering the design of some of its postboxes.
A trial is under way that modernises the traditional red letterbox to accommodate parcel senders.
Users will go to the Royal Mail website or app to preorder postage, then print and attach a label with a QR code.
A camera on the new postbox (powered by solar panels on top of it) scans the code to unlock a parcel chute below the standard letter hole.
Problem solved? Not really. Senders will still need access to a printer, and those without will still have to go to the Post Office.
Plus, the size of the hatch limits the size of parcels that can be sent. Bigger packages are better suited to the parcel postboxes that Royal Mail already operates.
All this trial will confirm is whether retrofitting old postboxes can be cost effective.
It won’t address the bigger issue of severe bottlenecks caused by parcels in depots, sorting offices and postal vans designed to deliver letters.
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