The UK’s Post Office yesterday announced the national roll-out of its ‘Drop & Go’ service,which aims to speed up the process of posting parcels and mail for business customers and frequent
eBay sellers.The Drop & Go swipe-card fast-track service will be available at more than 10,000 PostOffice branches and has been launched in response to the ever-growing e-commerce market. A recentstudy showed that a third of UK adults sell items on eBay and almost a quarter sell more than 20items per year through services such as eBay.
Customers who regularly spend more than £20 a week on postage will be able to hand overparcels and mail at a fast-drop counter at their local Post Office and swipe their pre-paid Drop& Go card, letting the Post Office team apply the postage on their behalf. The free-to-joinservice aims to save SMEs and regular mailing customers valuable time when preparing their packagesand mail for posting at their local Post Office.
Post Office head of mail services Paul Brown said: “Drop & Go is part of the changestaking place across the Post Office network to make our services as easy as possible for customersto access. Other changes include transforming branches into modern retail outlets and offeringlonger opening hours to better meet our customers’ needs.
He said Post Office branches were visited by around 20 million customers and more than athird of UK small businesses every week. “These businesses play a hugely important role in oureconomy, so we must make it as easy as possible for them to use our services,”
Brown continued. “Drop & Go will provide a much quicker, simpler and more effectiveexperience for these businesses, as well as frequent private sellers on the internet.”
The state-owned Post Office, which is now independent of soon-to-be-privatised nationalpostal operator Royal Mail, is the largest retail network in the UK, with more than 11,500branches.
