Following record sales over the Black Friday weekend, the Post Office is braced for its busiest festive season ever for handling online shopping returns, with 72 per cent of online shoppers saying the Post Office is their preferred route for returns1. Over 75 per cent of people confirm that online shopping has caused them to change the way they shop, with just under half of shoppers (43 per cent) admitting they buy more online than they ever would in store.
This weekend will be busiest for pre-Christmas returns, leading the Post Office to dub it ‘Send-back Saturday’ (12th December) as two thirds of shoppers are predicted to return unwanted items. Throughout the UK, over £160m of Black Friday stock is expected to be sent back during the Christmas period2.
As it faces one of its busiest weeks of the year, Post Office has boosted its resources with an extra 600 ‘Christmas Makers’ to help its customers get Christmas sorted. In addition more than 500 Self Service Kiosks at Post Office branches, which already offered access to a wide range of Royal Mail services, now have the facility for people to return home shopping items, including Royal Mail Tracked Returns, without the need to visit the Post Office counter.
Additionally, a whopping 3,000 branches will be open on Sundays. The Post Office’s commitment to longer opening hours will result in branches around the UK opening for an extra 500,000 more hours this festive season, ensuring people will have access to a Post Office when it is convenient for them. With Post Offices opening for longer than ever before, some even open 24 hours a day, it will now be easier for customers to visit and get their Christmas errands sorted.
Pete Markey, Chief Marketing Officer, Post Office, comments: ‘We are ready for the busy festive period and expecting our busiest Christmas season ever for online shopping returns. Shoppers spent a huge £3.3bn over the Black Friday weekend – a 36 per cent increase on last year3. And, as 72 per cent of online shoppers prefer to return via the Post Office, it is vital for us to ramp up resources not just for returns but also other in-branch services to help get Christmas sorted.”
With over 11,500 branches, the Post Office network is the biggest retail network in the UK, with more branches than all the banks and building societies combined. Around 5,000 branches have already been transformed through the Post offices modernisation process, with a further 3,000 set to be modernised in the coming years. The Post Office at Christmas is not just about posting cards and gifts. The extensive retail offering means branches serving communities across the UK offer everything from Christmas trees to turkeys.