MetaPack helps deliver new service for House of Fraser and LÂ’Occitane

MetaPack helps deliver new service for House of Fraser and L’Occitane

Royal Mail have just launched a trial of evening deliveries as part of its drive to give shoppers even greater control over the delivery of items they have ordered online.

The trial is initially being carried out through the MetaPack delivery management system.

As part of the six-month trial, people living within the M25 can select an evening delivery option for items they have ordered from participating retailers, both of whom are using the MetaPack platform.

House of Fraser and beauty product specialist L’Occitane are taking part in the project, and Royal Mail is talking to other retailers who are already interested in joining the trial.

MetaPack said it was able to help House of Fraser and L’Occitane join this trial owing to the ease with which the extra service could be added to the existing Royal Mail/MetaPack integration and applied across the board once the decision is taken to roll out.

Nancy Tolhurst, business development manager at Royal Mail, explained: “We’re working with MetaPack because they’re a supplier to many of our existing clients – solving the integration problem once for a group of clients, rather than for each individual client, makes a lot of sense for us.”

Adding to consumer choice

Mike Brown, Royal Mail’s fulfilment director, said: “Royal Mail is continually looking at ways in which we can invest in new services and innovations to help both retailers and shoppers have even greater choice over the delivery of items.”

Patrick Wall, MetaPack chief executive, welcomed Royal Mail’s initiative. “Time and time again industry research has highlighted the importance of delivery options and their role not only in customer satisfaction but in reducing costs for retailer and carrier alike. It’s great that companies such as Royal Mail have taken this information to heart and are really working to make online shopping a more pleasant experience for all involved and the new service is a welcome addition to our existing 608 options across carriers.”

Royal Mail’s Brown added: “Consumers increasingly want more control over when and where they receive their orders and Royal Mail is looking to fit the online delivery experience around the shopper – enabling them to select, rather than being told, when their goods will be delivered.”

Robin Terrell, executive director of multichannel and international for House of Fraser, said: “One of our key focus areas is providing our customers with the widest choice of convenient and flexible delivery options in the marketplace.

“Royal Mail’s evening delivery initiative fits perfectly with our strategy and allows us to offer our customers living within the M25 yet another option when deciding how they wish to receive their online orders.”

Maximising shopping flexibility

Kevin Cooper, e-commerce and mail order director at L'Occitane, said: “We always strive to offer our customers with the widest choice of delivery options as we know that to them convenience is of the utmost importance. This new initiative from Royal Mail allows us to give our customers the maximum flexibility when ordering from us – putting them at the absolute centre of our online experience.”

The trial enables shoppers at House of Fraser and L’Occitane to ask, at the point of order, for items to be delivered in the evening between 6pm and 10pm.

Royal Mail already provides a range of options for customers who are not in to receive a delivery, either because the item requires a signature or is too big to go through the letterbox, and have recently extended opening hours across delivery offices to enable consumers to collect items at more convenient times.

Royal Mail Tracked, a new service recently launched by Royal Mail, enables retailers to give their shoppers the ability to specify an alternative safe and secure delivery point, such as a porch or neighbour, should they not be at home when delivery was attempted.

Customers can also arrange a redelivery to their home or a neighbour or ask for items to be taken to a Post Office branch, through a service called Local Collect.