Royal Mail to trial Sunday parcel delivery service for major retailers

In the next month, a number of retail brands will begin trialling Royal Mail’s new Sunday delivery service across the UK, with Royal Mail in discussions with additional retailers about rolling out the service to their customers too.

The trial is the first step in Royal Mail’s move to tap into the seven-day-a-week delivery market as more and more consumers expect Sunday deliveries as part of their online shopping experience.

In the last year, Royal Mail has processed unprecedented parcel volumes, delivering a 496 million parcels in the third quarter alone (ending 27 December 2020).

Royal Mail is also constructing its second, and largest, parcel hub in the Midlands as the Company accelerates its transformation and manages the growth in demand for parcels.

Once complete, the new hub will be the size of more than ten football pitches and have the capacity to process over 1 million parcels per day.

Nick Landon, Chief Commercial Officer at Royal Mail, said: "The UK already trusts us to deliver their purchases six days a week both quickly and conveniently. Now for the first time our posties will be doing the same thing seven days a week.

"The last year has reset so many customer expectations and the desire for even more convenient and even more frequent parcel deliveries has certainly been one of them. We always listen to our customers, both senders and recipients, and the ask here was clear: we love what you do Monday to Saturday, so please do the same on a Sunday. So that’s what we’re doing, as quickly as possible so we can offer it to more and more customers across the course of this year."

Last week, The Post Office announced a partnership with online marketplace giant Amazon to launch a new click and collect trial service. The landmark deal marks the first time the Post Office has partnered with a third party.