Can’t get to the Post Office? Try a ‘parcel box’
THE classic red pillar box is being redesigned for the internet shopping age with a version that allow users to post parcels.
The change in the role of post boxes is being presented by the Royal Mail as the most significant since they first arrived on our streets more than 160 years ago.
A trial of 30 of the rectangular boxes, which are capable of taking small parcels where the postage has been pre-paid using a label from the Royal Mail website, is taking place in Northampton and Leicester.
Royal Mail says the service is designed to help so- called marketplace traders, who operate through websites such as eBay and Amazon and repeatedly send items to customers across the UK.
By using the boxes, these sellers do not need to visit post offices to queue with other customers.
Ordinary consumers will also be able to use the parcel post boxes, provided they use the Royal Mail ‘click and drop’ service, which means they have to accurately measure and weigh the item to ensure they know the correct postage before paying online and printing off a label.
The cost of sending a small parcel, which weighs less than 2kg and measures no more than 45cm by 35cm and 16cm deep, starts at £2.85 Second Class rising to £11 for Special Delivery. If the sum paid is incorrect, the recipient can be asked to make up the difference.
The first post boxes were tried out in Jersey in 1852 and they were introduced across the UK in 1853 by the novelist Anthony Trollope who was also a senior manager at the General Post Office.
Royal Mail said: ‘Parcel post boxes mean small businesses and marketplace sellers can post pre-paid parcels through securely designed parcel post boxes, in the same way that they currently post a letter.’