Royal Mail to trial Sunday parcel deliveries in the UK

The move is aimed at tapping into the seven-days-a-week delivery market, as more consumers expect Sunday deliveries as part of their online shopping.

In the last year, Royal Mail said it has processed unprecedented parcel volumes, delivering 496 million in the third quarter ending December 27.

Royal Mail said construction of its second, and largest, parcel hub is underway in Daventry in Northamptonshire, with the capacity to process more than one million parcels a day, which could help with the Sunday deliveries.

Royal Mail is set to trial a Sunday parcel delivery service

Chief commercial officer Nick Landon said: “The UK already trusts us to deliver their purchases six days a week both quickly and conveniently.

"Now, for the first time, our posties will be doing the same thing seven days a week.

“The last year has reset so many customer expectations and the desire for even more convenient and even more frequent parcel deliveries has certainly been one of them.

“We always listen to our customers, both senders and recipients, and the ask here was clear: we love what you do Monday to Saturday, so please do the same on a Sunday.

• SEE ALSO: UK parcel delivery firms ranked

“So that’s what we’re doing, as quickly as possible, so we can offer it to more and more customers across the course of this year.”

Royal Mail said this week some postcodes in the UK are still suffering from delays due to Covid.

The postal service said the delays are due to staff isolating and social distancing guidelines meaning deliveries are taking longer.

The places currently facing delays are Basingstoke, North Tyneside and St Albans.

The company said in a statement: "We're sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding. We’re working hard to deliver as comprehensive a service as possible with the resource available to support these offices.

"And we’re ensuring we prioritise delivery of Covid-19 vaccination letters and test kits."

In a recent poll by MoneySavingExpert.com, Royal Mail fell behind its delivery competitors in terms of how customers would rate the provided service.The poll ran in early January and asked users to rate their experience over the previous year. 

In the survey, 11,440 people voted and the delivery companies were ranked either by "great" "ok" or "poor".

DPD Local ranked as the best delivery firm while Royal Mail came in fourth place.

Royal Mail received 49 percent "great" votes, 36 percent of participants thought the service was "ok" while 15 percent thought the service was "poor".