CollectPlus, UK’s innovative parcel delivery and returns service, has partnered with the majorBritish retailer John Lewis to provide free returns of clothes, shoes and fashion accessories
bought online via its network of over 5,000 local shops.This partnership offers more convenience to British online shoppers as they can choose any ofthe local convenience stores, newsagents and petrol stations in the CollectPlus network, all ofwhich are open until late seven days a week. This will allow customers to return their purchaseswhen and where it is convenient for them and also track every stage of their return parcel shippedback to John Lewis.
From early autumn this year, John Lewis will also trial a ‘Click&Collect+’ service fromCollectPlus in Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of South-West England. The service will cost £3and will typically take three days. This follows a successful roll-out of John Lewis’ ‘click andcollect’ service to 234 collection points within its department stores, ‘at homes’ shops, andWaitrose branches.
Neil Ashworth, CEO of CollectPlus, said: “We’ve designed the CollectPlus service to ensure thatcustomers find collecting and returning items as easy and as painless as possible. The extendedopening hours associated with all CollectPlus stores allow customers to drop off or return itemsoutside of the traditional trading day. With this in mind, the CollectPlus service will fitperfectly around the busy lives of John Lewis customers, making it easy for customers to fitcollecting and returning purchases into the rest of their day.”
Karen Dracou, head of omnichannel development at John Lewis, said: “Orders using Click &Collect have nearly doubled over the past year, and accounted for an impressive 35% of online salesover the Christmas period, so we know that customers are looking for ever-more convenient ways ofshopping with us. By partnering with CollectPlus, we can extend our existing reach of John Lewisand Waitrose collection points to a wider geographical base, providing an even more convenient wayfor our customers to shop.”
CollectPlus, jointly owned by payment company PayPoint and parcels operator Yodel, recentlypassed a milestone by delivering its 10 millionth parcel since its foundation in 2009. In the firsthalf of 2012 the company more than doubled parcel volumes to 3.3 million and increased revenues by170% to £3.7 million. The success of the innovative model is reflected in the 160 retail brandsthat CollectPlus provides returns solutions for, with nearly 100 added over the past year.
87% of the UK population already live within a mile of a CollectPlus shop in urban areas and 88%within five miles in rural areas. The store network has grown by over a quarter in the last 12months and continues to expand.
