Yodel to rebrand InPost as company pushes parcel lockers

It’s no real surprise to see the news that the Yodel brand is to be retired as the InPost name replaces it. It’s been carrying the ‘Yodel by InPost’ logo since acquisition, and probably the only thing that’s been holding them back is the sheer cost of repainting thousands of trailers, tractor units, parcel lockers, warehouses and offices.

But says InPost, the rebrand is more than just changing the paint colour and logos. It is they say more about what customers want. Two key changes will take place alongside the retirement of the Yodel brand:

• Expanded Delivery Options: InPost will look to offer online shoppers a “greater number of delivery options.”
• 48-Hour Delivery Guarantee: InPost is planning to introduce a new guarantee ensuring that goods will arrive at their parcel lockers within 48 hours of being ordered.

InPost’s aim is to get everyone in the country within a five minute walk of an InPost locker – currently they’re at around 50% of this target. Even over the counter services are being rethought, although InPost say that they’ll remain in the mix – earlier this year they ended InPost and Yodel parcel drop-offs and collections services contracts with a number of local stores.

InPost state that on average we receive around six parcels a month and that 40% of us experience at least one missed delivery. Have to say I order a lot more than that and the only missed deliveries I have are when the courier doesn’t turn up on the expected day. However I’m probably not your average shopper (I’ve ordered goods from four different retailers today alone!).

Lockers are attractive to carriers however and it’s in InPost’s interest to point to lockers reducing missed deliveries…. and the cost benefits of reduced mileage and improved route planning. Dropping off 10 or so parcels at a single bank of lockers is a lot more efficient than driving to 10 different addresses.

The problem with parcel lockers

But there is a point where this logic falls down. Whenever Yodel, Evri, Royal Mail, or Amazon drive into my cul de sac, they tend to exit their van with an armful of parcels and visit three of four houses. Such is the volume of goods being purchased online, even if I were to have my parcels inconveniently dropped at a locker that I’d have to visit to retrieve them, the local delivery driver would still drive down my road to deliver the rest.

And you can forget the environmental aspects of locker deliveries – my last delivery was for cat biscuits and I’m getting too old to want to lug a 14kg parcel home by foot, so any savings of CO2 from a locker delivery will instantly be wiped out when I jump in the car to retrieve the parcel.

There’s also another problem – not all carriers use the same bank of lockers. In one direction there’s a shared Royal Mail/Evri/DPD bank of lockers, slightly further there’s an InPost locker, and a little bit further away is an Amazon Locker. Potentially with the orders I placed today, I might have to visit three different locker locations to pick up my online purchases.

How parcel lockers should be used

But there is a bright side to locker deliveries and in my opinion it’s not for a first delivery attempt. Ask anyone if they’d rather have their parcel handed over at their front door, or wander down the road to a locker, and most will choose the former. However, ask the same group of people if they’d rather a missed delivery and have to reschedule a delivery (alternatively maybe drive 20 miles to a courier depot to collect their item), or if failed first attempts were automatically diverted to a locker so that they can collect at any time of day or night, suddenly lockers start to make more sense.

Some people love the convenience of parcel lockers, others would use them when forced to do so. Some really don’t want to use them but (like me) would accept them as an alternative to a failed delivery as a back up to door step delivery. But if a rebranded Yodel tries to encourage me to use lockers as a first choice they’ve got a very long uphill battle to fight (and probably I’ll just switch retailers were possible to one that will deliver to my front door!)