Royal Mail to introduce its first parcel lockers

Royal Mail has announced that its customers will soon be able to use parcel lockers to send and receive parcels, as a result of a partnership with solutions provider Quadient.

The lockers will be launched from April 2024, with the first locations to be in Coventry, West Midlands. In the following months, Royal Mail plans to roll them out ‘nationwide’, with 1,500 expected locations by the end of the year. Ultimately, it wants to create a network of around 3,000 lockers around the UK.

Customers will initially only be able to drop off parcels but Royal Mail is set to expand to offer customer collections at a later date.

This decision is ‘an important part of Royal Mail’s strategy to continue to make sending and receiving parcels as convenient as possible by adding more choice’. The company says that with the addition of 3,000 lockers, its customers will have the choice of over 21,000 locations for dropping off parcels, including 11,500 Post Office branches, 5,000 Collect+ stores, 1,200 Royal Mail customer service points and 1,200 parcel postboxes.

Plus, in October 2023, Royal Mail partnered with retail returns solutions provider ZigZag Global to “enable ZigZag’s retailers to offer their customers a convenient home collection service operated by one of the UK’s most trusted carrier services”.

Martin Seidenberg, CEO of Royal Mail Group, said: “Our expansion into lockers with 24/7 access will give our customers even greater choice of more than 21,000 locations to drop off parcels. We want to make it as convenient as possible for customers to send and return parcels, fitting it in around their daily routines with a range of options for different lifestyles.

“We are continually finding new ways to improve our services, including more online postage options through our website and app, 24/7 drop off at locations like our parcel postboxes, use of Collect+ stores and Post Offices, and collection from home through Royal Mail Parcel Collect.”

Geoffrey Godet, CEO of Quadient, added: “We are honoured by Royal Mail’s trust in our solution, including our award-winning drop box locker, and our business model. We take pride in seeing how quickly our open locker network has grown since we first announced it in the summer of 2022.

“The strategic partnerships in place are a testament to the success of our agnostic approach, addressing the needs of UK carriers and consumers as we serve one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world. Now partnering with the market leader for parcel delivery, we are more confident than ever that customer adoption and usage of our lockers will continue to accelerate, as more locations are installed, and more services are enabled.”

According to IMRG’s “Consumer Home Delivery Review 2022/23”, alternative delivery locations like convenience stores and petrol stations are amongst the most popular delivery destinations for consumers, with over 10% of those surveyed saying that they normally have items delivered to these locations.

Unsurprisingly, home deliveries were found to be by far the most popular, favoured by almost 90% of respondents.

Less expected, perhaps, is the fact that there were more people in the survey that would have an item delivered to store for click-and-collect or an alternative delivery location than to a friend, relative or neighbour’s house. In 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic, delivering to the house of someone trusted was considerably more popular than delivering to, for example, a convenience store, but the latter overtook the former in 2021 and has remained more popular since.

The rising popularity of parcel lockers is further exemplified by data from returns specialist ZigZag, which found that returns using lockers increased by 207% across 2022’s Black Friday week compared with the same week in 2021.

In November 2023, ZigZag CEO Al Gerrie reflected on Black Friday, saying: “What’s really interesting is the change of returns methods; the locker option in particular has become more popular. As lockers were introduced they were predominantly only available in large towns and cities but now, as more have become available nationwide, shoppers are choosing to use them for convenience.”

Royal Mail is not the only company to be exploring the use of parcel lockers. Earlier this month [March 2024] supermarket chain Aldi announced it was trialling the use of InPost parcel lockers outside 22 of its UK stores.

After a 12-week period, the trial will conclude and, if successful, parcel lockers will be introduced at more stores.

Richard Thornton, communications director at Aldi UK, said: “We are all about making things efficient for our customers, and the installation of InPost lockers will make shopping at Aldi even more convenient.

“People can collect or return parcels while they are doing their shopping, with the lockers accessible with a QR code. If the trial is successful, this will hopefully be something available to lots more of our shoppers later this year.”

Michael Rouse, CEO at InPost International, added: “We’re on a mission to bring unrivalled parcel convenience to shoppers in the UK, and this trial with Aldi does just that.

“With over 6,000 parcel lockers in the UK, we offer hassle-free delivery options that easily integrate into shoppers’ daily routines. In this case, Aldi customers can now pick up and drop off their parcels with ease and efficiency while doing the weekly shop. We look forward to seeing the results from the trial and the start of a successful partnership.”