Key growth opportunity

We are continuing to add new customers to our Later Acceptance Times offering for our Tracked 24 product, which enables us to accept items into our distribution centres until 1.30am.

After Bloom & Wild were the first, retail outlet River Island has now begin a trial.

We’ve responded to the needs of businesses and their customers – who are ordering items later in the evening and expecting to receive them the next day. This is a key part of our strategy to grow in parcels.

Nick Landon, chief customer officer, said: ‘Every year, we ask our customers what the most important thing is that they want us to develop. Over the last three years increasingly they have requested later acceptance times to our network.

‘The world is changing. People order later and later at night and still expect next-day delivery so that’s what we’ve done. We’ve now introduced a network where, unlike three years ago when people had to get it to us by 5pm, we can accept items into our network until 1.30 in the morning. That means we’re collecting from customers at midnight. It means customers can order between 10 and 11pm and still get delivery the next day. This has opened up a whole new part of the market to us.’

The feedback from online flower gifting company, Bloom & Wild, has been excellent.

‘More customers are already signing up for the service and a number of others will join them in the coming months.’ said Nick. ‘River Island is testing the service now. We hope it’s going to work really well for them.

‘We’ve got a huge pipeline of customers who are really interested and waiting to come on board. This is one of the biggest opportunities we have for new business revenue at the moment and we’re really excited about it.’