Parcel Wars Frenzy of activity as online purchases soar

Royal Mail slashes prices for packages as delivery depots open on Sundays.

Britain’s Christmas is set to be signed, sealed and delivered as never before.

An online frenzy will see the number of “click-not-brick” purchases soar by more than 10% over last year’s record-breaking tally.

And now parcel wars have broken out.

Royal Mail is behind the new offensive being fought in sorting centres and delivery vans across the country. Newly privatised, it joined the list of Britain’s 100 biggest companies at Christmas last year and has come out fighting in storming fashion this year. In a bid to get an even bigger slice of the “aggressive” parcel business, it has launched an all-out blitz on the booming festive gift market.

It has almost doubled the size of what qualifies as a small parcel, meaning a saving of more than a fiver and a new cost of just £2.80.

It’s already sparking a posting boom and a fightback from rivals desperate to have their own Christmas cracker.

Leigh Sparks, professor of retail studies at Stirling University, says the whole industry has changed and companies have to respond to that.

“The traditional way of getting items from A to B had been Royal Mail and the Post Office, but they have seen a whole range of rivals coming into that market. It’s no longer a monopoly,” he explained.

“There are new ways of doing things and there has to be a reaction Royal Mail’s pricing is their reaction. The online industry has expanded phenomenally there is no doubt this will be the biggest online Christmas ever.”

As the biggest business, Royal Mail is looking to use its sheer size and new strategy to hammer home its advantage. It’s taking on an extra 19,000 workers and hiring almost 5,000 more delivery vans.

Some 4,000 of the workers will staff 10 massive temporary sorting centres one with more than 300 posties just opening in Bathgate to cope with the mountain of parcels. And to make sure we get our goodies when we want, Royal Mail is also letting customers collect them from delivery offices on Sundays.

“We started a pilot trial at 100 offices a few weeks ago and the demand has been incredible,” said a Royal Mail spokeswoman. “On the first Sunday there were queues outside. So, we are just about to open another 129 in the coming days, all across the UK.”

Centres in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen, Inverness and Carlisle are among those set to throw their doors open on the Sabbath for the first time.

“There is now a very aggressive market in the UK for parcel delivery and we are reacting to that,” added the Royal Mail spokeswoman. “This is easily the busiest time of the year for both us and our customers.

“The fact it’s now a lot cheaper to send a parcel than it was last year is great news for everyone who wants to post a present to family and friends and also for all the small operators on the likes of eBay, who can now send out orders much more cheaply.”

New figures reveal that half of all shoppers have left their entire Christmas buy to the next five weeks.

In December alone, there will be 120 million online orders placed, most now by smartphone, making Britons the biggest internet buyers anywhere in the world.

Black Friday, which falls on November 28, and Cyber Monday, on December 1, is expected to be the peak buying time, with retail giant Amazon saying the first day of advent will be their busiest day of the year.

It’s predicted that overall in the UK, 10 million parcels a day will fly into the system throughout next month.

Prof Sparks continued: “It’s all happening around that weekend. There’s a lot of fuss around Black Friday, which is a very American thing. There’s evidence that Christmas is coming earlier and earlier. At some point there must be a limit to the online boom, but I don’t think we are anywhere near it yet.”

Yodel will be one of Royal Mail’s main competitors. Often criticised for its level of service, the company is pulling out all the stops to deliver a better level of customer satisfaction this Christmas. It began preparing in January, with the appointment of a dedicated peak planning team as well as working closely with retail clients on their predicted volumes.

With forecasts that it will handle 15% more parcels than last Christmas, it has procured an additional 13 sites, including one in East Kilbride, in addition to more than 60 established locations in the UK. An additional 5,000 workers have been recruited, an extra 200 HGVs and 500 trailers have been sourced and operational hours at the company’s three central sorting facilities have been extended.

Dick Stead, Yodel’s executive chairman, commented: “We’re fully prepared for parcel volumes to reach record levels. Our clients and their customers depend on us to deliver Christmas.

“We’ve worked closely with retailers and sourced additional sites, vehicles and staff to manage the surge in parcel volumes and have contingency plans to ensure we’re well placed to weather the British winter.”

Like Yodel, DPD (Dynamic Parcel Distribution) began their festive preparations in January.

It employs more than 7,000 people in the UK, operates in excess of 3,000 vehicles from more than 50 locations and delivers 1.6 million parcels per week. In the run-up to Christmas, DPD will have more than 5,000 delivery drivers on the roads. DPD has also started a popular Sunday service, which is expanding for Christmas.

Dwain McDonald, DPD’s CEO, said: “Opening up our network on a Sunday originally created 500 new jobs up and down the country.

“The reality is that that figure is going to be closer to 1,000.”