Showing posts with label enquiry office. Show all posts
Showing posts with label enquiry office. Show all posts

Tuesday, 7 January 2025

Royal Mail 24/7 Locker Boxes sourced in Ukraine by-pass Post Office branch pick-up

Press Release 12 December 2024

Royal Mail launches its own lockers in next phase of expansion

Royal Mail has launched its own lockers as part of its strategy to rapidly expand its number of parcel points to meet growing demand from online shoppers and marketplace sellers.

The first 250 lockers which can be used exclusively by Royal Mail customers will be rolled out in early 2025, with the first now live outside the company’s historic Mount Pleasant mail centre in London.

The lockers will provide 24/7 access in convenient, high footfall locations, which will include spaces outside of Royal Mail’s delivery offices plus third-party retailers.

Initially, the lockers will offer a parcel sending service including label printing, to support the increasing number of people selling clothing and other items on secondhand marketplaces, as well as traditional online shoppers sending returns. Customers will also be able to collect their parcels from Royal Mail lockers in the near future.

Royal Mail began a major expansion of its parcel points earlier this year to offer customers more choice as parcel demand continues to grow, as part of a wider programme of modernisation.

Through partnerships, Royal Mail customers can drop off parcels at 1,000 shared lockers and more than 5,000 Collect+ points convenience stores.

The launch of Royal Mail’s own lockers is the first time the company is providing access to dedicated lockers available only for its customers, which will improve capacity and customer service as well as enabling greater control over where they’re rolled out.

Royal Mail Locker-box at Mount Pleasant Mail Centre, London


According to dev.ua 13 December 2024

The Ukrainian-Polish company Modern Expo announced the start of cooperation with the Royal Mail, for which it provided postal equipment and software to them.

"Modern Expo successfully implemented the first major stage of cooperation with the Royal Mail - in less than 3 months... Together we held dozens of individual meetings and workshops, during which we discussed product design, analyzed locations, talked about customer care, UX/UI, etc. The cooperation also included a visit to the production of Modern Expo and installation visits to other existing markets to ensure that each part meets each detail with international standards," the company said.

The Modern Expo added that the company cooperates with the Royal Mail as a turnkey resolution and, in addition to mailboxes and software, also provides comprehensive support for these solutions. (See specification here.)

In turn, the British newspaper The Telegraph writes that the Royal Mail is thus trying to intensify its competition with Amazon in this segment.

According to the publication, the first 250 post offices will be put into operation in early 2025. The first of them is already opened outside the Royal Mail Mount Pleasant postal center in Clerkenwell, the center of London.

The locations will have round-the-clock access for customers who will pick up parcels. The publication also adds that the Royal Mail is trying to focus on developing parcel delivery amid a long and large-scale reduction in the number of letters sent.

Modern Expo was founded Pole Bohdan Lukasik and Ukrainian Petro Pylypiuk.

UPDATE 10 May 2025  Royal Mail uses parcel lockers to raise awareness of life saving CPR training

Royal Mail is helping to save lives by using its parcel locker network to raise awareness of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) training. This is part of wider partnership with the British Heart Foundation (BHF) which has so far seen Royal Mail raise £1m for community defibrillators.

Image: Royal Mail

 

The first CPR awareness parcel locker is now live in East Ham, London, and hundreds more will be rolled out this year.

The locker features the BHF logo and a QR code with the message ‘scan to learn CPR in 15 minutes.’ The QR code takes users to the RevivR home page , the BHF’s free online course which teaches people how to perform CPR in just 15 minutes.


Monday, 10 September 2018

No Bikes at Royal Mail Delivery Offices

Ok, so this is not exactly news to most UK readers as Royal Mail has mostly abandoned the use of bicycles for deliveries, instead using vans or trolleys to take the many parcels and packets on delivery rounds.

But our message actually refers to the Mail by Bike Post and Go stamps which, we understand, will be in Post Office self-service kiosks and the Post and Go machine at The Postal Museum, but not at Royal Mail Delivery Offices.  More information here.

UPDATE 14 SEPTEMBER:  Rumour from Stampex is that there will be no more special Post and Go issues.  More about this after our break when there will, hopefully, be confirmation or otherwise.

Sunday, 19 February 2017

Post and Go News from Royal Mail

Press Release
 
Royal Mail is pleased to announce that Mail by Rail (1st Class only) stamps will be available at STEAM GWR Swindon from 20 February until 15 March.

Machine A005, currently situated at The Royal Marines Museum in Portsmouth, will be moving following a re-organisation at NMRN. The last day of sales at RMM will be 24 February.

A005 will be relocated to the East Anglian Railway Museum, Colchester from 20 March. The location ID will be EARM and it will vend Locomotive and Union Flag stamp designs.

Operational machine M011 is now live at MOD Filton Abbey Wood in Bristol. The MOD Open Day will be on 27 February §.

Operational machine M005, currently located at Croydon Enquiry Office, will be relocated in the next month. Details of the new site to follow.

§ Note this is not an open Open Day; I understand it is for visitors from other parts of MOD visiting Defence Equipment and Support I believe an additional inscription will be added to the stamps for a period from 27 February.  More details when we have them.


Tuesday, 5 April 2016

Tariff change problems with Post and Go stamps reported.

Anonymous reported on another post:
The BPMA had problems over the past few day, so new varities, the same but less so. Problems with Mail Centre / Delivery machines + all museums having a new stamp Euro (blank no weight) Worldwide 10g. 

I do not think many people would have noticed or gone to any machines when they would be paying what would be 7p more each strip. 

If you have news for us, please send an email to the address at top right, rather than add to other posts which are not directly relevant.  And if anybody has pictures or more details of this from the new Postal Museum, or any other locations, please let me know!

The description provided by Anonymous suggests that the Euro 20 / World 10 stamps produced looked something like one of these mock-ups:


UPDATE
I am pleased to say that I have now been sent some images and part of the story of these.  Apparently on Tuesday 29 March (the first day of the new rate), the BPMA machine was unable to process card payments (it may have worked for about 20 minutes).  It was fixed and working properly by late afternoon on Wednesday 30th.  These examples were obtained on the morning of Thursday 31st.

The single stamp is from machine M002 at Mount Pleasant and examples are known from at least two other locations.  It is likely that all Museum and Enquiry Office machines were affected, although the faulty stamps may not have been bought from all of them.



UPDATE
This error also occurred last week but seems to have been corrected quite quickly.  The pictorial (Flag and Heritage Transport) stamps have both single line and 3 line captions.  The Machins have two single line captions superimposed.  Only one logo appears on any of them.  The errant caption is smaller and is the same on all stamps.  I've selected single stamps from Collectors Strips, but all stamps in the strip showed the same error.




Wednesday, 30 September 2015

Much More Post and Go News 3 - Poppies

From Royal Mail's Post and Go News webpage today:

"Poppy stamp

The Poppy design from the Symbolic Flowers Post & Go set will be re-introduced nationwide from 19 October 2015. The stamps will be available from Post & Go /Self-Service Kiosk post offices, BPMA, Royal Navy Museum and Royal Mail Enquiry office machines."

It will also be one of the options at the Sindelfingen and Paris stamp exhibitions - see here.

UPDATE: The Poppy stamp has been reprinted with MA15 year code: there are reports of blank examples already being offered on auction site eBay.

Wednesday, 8 July 2015

Post and Go News

Latest News from Royal Mail

"Following the success of the Post and Go machines at the Royal Navy Museums, we are pleased to announce that a machine will be installed at the final site in the group, The Royal Navy Submarine Museum at Gosport.


"Machine A004 will go live on Tuesday 28th July. The machine will vend Union Flag and Machin stamps with ‘The RNSM’ as the location identifier. "



I don't think I updated the blog regarding the move of M002 from Crewe to Mount Pleasant.
"M002 was installed at the Mount Pleasant Enquiry Office on the 3rd June 2015."



The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA) 


BPMA will be introducing on 16 September a new Heraldic Lion Post and Go reprint to be issued by its on-site Post and Go machine. 

The Heraldic Lion design was first issued on 13 May 2015 in a strip with five other Heraldic Beasts.  This new product will be the Lion stamp alone on the roll and will first be used on Wednesday 16th September until 18 October inclusive. The Lion design will be temporarily replaced with the Poppy from 19 October to 15 November 2015.

The stamp will carry the usual BPMA inscription and will be issued alongside the 1st and 2nd class Machin and Union Flag designs.



As yet Royal Mail have not provided information about the Post and Go Set Up at Autumn Stampex - save that the Sea Travel set will be on sale for the first time.

It may be that one or more of the Royal Mail Stampex machines will also carry the single-stamp Heraldic Lion, maybe instead of the Union Flag.  It would be unfortunate if the only outlet for this reprinted Lion is at the BPMA and so only available with the BPMA inscription.  That's not how things worked when the Poppy stamp went solo!

UPDATE: I've had confirmation that the BPMA will not be the only source of this reprint, but no decision has yet been made on its distribution. 


Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Post and Go on the move

Two pieces of Post and Go news this week.


Royal Mail will be attending the MIDPEX Stamp Show on 4 July at The Warwickshire Exhibition Centre, Fosse Way, nr. Leamington Spa CV31 1XN.

There will be two Royal Mail Series II Machines A006 and A008, which will dispense Machin and Union Flag designs. There will be no special inscription for the event.

For details of Midpex: location, 73 dealers and the 42 specialist societies attending see the website.
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Enquiry Office machine on the move.
I'm reliably informed that, despite the apparent success of the trial at Crewe enquiry office, Machine M002 is being moved from Crewe to Mount Pleasant in London.  It will be removed Wednesday 27 May and after an upgrade, will be relocated.

Mount Pleasant enquiry office, of course, is a very short distance from the BPMA, and between there and the Business Design Centre at Islington, so all three could be visited - if anybody is still interested, that is.


Monday, 27 April 2015

Post and Go in 3 more Enquiry Offices - today at Kingston-upon-Thames

Following the trial use of Royal Mail II Post and Go machines at Crewe and Bradford North three new Enquiry Office Post and Go machines will go live from 27 April 2015 as part of the ongoing trial.

Details are:

Kingston upon Thames – Machine M004 – 27 April 2015

Croydon – Machine M005 – 28 April 2015

Doncaster – Machine M006 – 29 April 2015

Machines will vend Machin 1st and 2nd class designs.

UPDATE:
Due to training requirements, the new kiosk at Kingston-on-Thames will not be in available until 16:00 on the 27th and Croydon and Doncaster not until 13:00 - see comments below as they show that these dates and times are not set in stone (more, slow-drying cement!)
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UPDATE 1 May 2015
At last somebody has found a machine in operation!  Thanks to Melvyn for sending these pictures from 29 April of M006 at Doncaster Enquiry Office.  The 2nd class is badly misaligned but the 1st class printed correctly:



Monday, 9 February 2015

The thin end of the wedge at Crewe and Bradford: Time to Stop the Gimmicks?

It is with great sadness that I report that Royal Mail has followed the lead of Jersey Post and is now using location identifiers in the new Post and Go machines at their Delivery Offices.

I've been sent these pictures from the new machine installed at Crewe today (thanks SL) and have no reason to believe that the Bradford ones will not be similar. 


The 2nd class are MA12 and the 1st class MA13.

We reported earlier that the new M series machines would be installed today to replace A003 and A004 which are going to Stampex and then on to new (Museum?) venues.

UPDATE 12 February
I can now show the Bradford North stamps; the lucky buyer also got a bonus with blanks at the start of his strips.   My advice with these would always be to keep them as they are.