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

ROYAL Mail is set to open thousands of shops across the UK for the first time.

The major deal will see around 8,000 Collect+ convenience stores rebranded to Royal Mail shops.

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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.”

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.

Earlier this year, Royal Mail hiked the price of stamps again.

The rise saw first-class stamps go up by 5p to £1.70, while second-class stamps went up by 2p to 87p.

Larger items faced sharper price hikes, with the cost of a first class large letter up to 100g increasing from £2.60 to £3.15.

And the cost of postage for small parcels weighing up to 2kg also rose, with first-class rates increasing from £4.79 to £4.99 and second-class rates climbing from £3.75 to £3.90.