Just two hours between last parcel collection on Christmas Eve and first return on Christmas Day
London, UK – 25 December 2014: CollectPlus, the UK’s largest independent store-based delivery and returns service, has revealed that the UK’s first Christmas present was returned on Christmas Day at 1.53am.
Even before Santa had finished his rounds, one CollectPlus customer made an early morning trip to their local BP Garage in St Helens in Merseyside to return an unwanted item. Recent research from CollectPlus reveals that 23% of people have returned an unwanted Christmas present in the past, with British shoppers estimating they will return almost one in three of the items they buy online this Christmas.
Whilst some were returning unwanted items at the earliest opportunity, others were working up to the wire to get their gifts sent before the Christmas break. Taking advantage of the 24 hour opening hours at their local convenience store, the last parcel collection was recorded at 11.47pm on Christmas Eve at Deneburn Stores in Consett, County Durham.
Neil Ashworth, CEO of CollectPlus comments: “Buying something for someone else can be a difficult task and generally people anticipate they will have to either return or exchange something they send or receive at Christmas. Consumers increasingly want to choose when and where they take receipt of, send and return their online Christmas purchases. As such, forward thinking retailers are making delivery and returns services much more flexible so that people can often collect and return parcels to a range of convenient points, quickly and easily, even on Christmas Day.
“This year, we’ve seen increased enthusiasm for retail promotions such as ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ and we expect to see another spike in online sales as the Boxing Day and January sales begin. The good news is that many retailers extend their standard 14-day returns periods over Christmas until the end of January, so depending on the retailer, shoppers have plenty of time to exchange or to get a refund and take full advantage of the great promotions on offer as they head into the New Year.”
CollectPlus, the first company to offer a nationwide Click and Collect service from local convenience stores, garages and supermarkets across the UK, has over 5,800 parcel stores in its network, nearly all of which are open early ‘til late, seven days a week. This enables customers of brands including Amazon, Very.co.uk, River Island and ASOS.com to collect, send and return their online purchases at their convenience – including over the two day Christmas break when many local stores remain open and operate late opening hours.
CollectPlus is a joint venture between PayPoint, the leading retail payment network and Yodel, the UK’s leading independent parcel carrier.
-ENDS-
Notes to Editor:
CollectPlus scores 8.5/10 on TrustPilot, with 76.9% of customers giving CollectPlus 4/5 stars (as of 25.12.14).
ABOUT COLLECTPLUS
CollectPlus is the largest store-based delivery and returns service giving online shoppers the ability to collect and drop off parcels at their local store. Founded in 2009, CollectPlus was the first business to offer third party click and collect in the UK. It answers a clear need for convenient and easy way to receive deliveries across the UK’s largest, independent store-based delivery and returns service, giving online shoppers the ability to collect and drop off parcels at their local store.
The success of our business model is reflected in more than 260 retail brands using CollectPlus to provide returns solutions. Our Click&Collect service enables customers to order online and have their items delivered to their local CollectPlus store and is available from a rising number of retailers; from Amazon to ASOS.com and Very.co.uk to River Island. This complements the returns offer that CollectPlus provides to retailers, thereby offering a
With a network of over 5,800 stores open early ‘til late seven days a week; 90% of the UK population already live within a mile of a CollectPlus shop in urban areas and 89% within five miles in rural areas. The store network has grown by over a quarter in the last 12 months and continues to expand.
CollectPlus is a joint venture between PayPoint, the leading retail payment network, and the UK’s leading independent parcel carrier, Yodel.
ABOUT PAYPOINT
PayPoint is an international leader in payment technologies, its solutions transforming payments for everyone from consumer and financial services companies to retailers, utilities, media, e-commerce, gaming and government clients.
PayPoint delivers payments and services by taking the complexity of multi-channel payments and translating it into convenient, simple, value-added solutions. It handles almost £15 billion from 785 million transactions annually for more than 6,000 clients and merchants.
With the backing of 24/7 operations centres with dual site processing, PayPoint is widely recognised for its leadership in payment systems, smart technology and service.
Retail networks
The PayPoint retail network across the UK numbers over 28,000 local shops (including Co-op, Spar, McColls, Costcutter, Sainsbury’s Local, Tesco Express, One Stop, Asda, Londis and thousands of independents), where it processes energy meter pre-payments, bill payments, benefit payments, mobile phone top-ups, transport tickets, BBC TV licences, cash withdrawals and a range of other transactions. In Romania, the retail network numbers over 8,750 terminals in local shops, helping people to make cash bill payments, money transfers, road tax payments and mobile phone top-ups. In the Republic of Ireland, over 500 terminals in shops and credit unions process mobile top-ups and bill payments.
PayPoint’s ATM network numbers more than 3,750 ‘LINK’ branded machines across the UK, and 9,500 PayPoint terminals enable retailers to accept credit and debit cards.
Mobile and Online
PayPoint Mobile and Online (formerly trading as PayPoint.net, PayByPhone and Adaptis) handles over 139 million payments for parking, payments and consumer services. In major cities in the UK, Canada, USA, France, Switzerland and Australia, its parking solutions make it easy for people to pay for parking by mobile, as well as providing electronic parking permits, automatic number plate recognition systems for car parks and penalty charge notices.
PayPoint’s core online payments platform is linked to 16 major acquiring banks in the UK, Europe and North America, delivering secure credit and debit card payments for almost 5,000 online merchants. Its suite of products ranges from transaction gateway to a bureau service, in addition to value-added services such as FraudGuard, an advanced service that mitigates the risk of fraud in card not present transactions.
ABOUT YODEL
Yodel is the UK's leading independent parcel carrier, offering the widest range of service options. The company handles over 155 million parcels every year and has a relationship with 85 per cent of the UK's top retailers. Yodel is headquartered in Hatfield and has over 60 locations across the UK, including three central sorts and over 50 service centres. Yodel offers a range of services to meet the needs of its clients and their customers:
- Yodel Home and Yodel Business - two van-based networks with service centre based drivers
- Yodel Neighbourhood - a neighbourhood courier service offering extended delivery hours
- Yodel World - international service
- YodelDirect – Yodel’s door-to-door consumer parcel service, ideal for online marketplace sellers and SMEs. It is the current sponsor of the Tour of Britain YodelDirect sprints jersey.
- Arrow XL - Through its sister company Yodel also offers a two man service for white goods and large items up to 120kg