Royal Mail launches timed delivery service to compete with Amazon

Royal Mail has announced it will offer a timed delivery service to customers next year as it attempts to fend off competition from Amazon.

Customers will have to pay extra for the service, which will allow them to specify a time slot to receive their parcel . The new service is part of Royal Mail's overhaul of its services after it revealed pre -tax profits had hit £ 726m following a surge in profits during the pandemic .

According to the Mail on Sunday, the new delivery window will include three tiers of delivery. The current basic service will remain, but two tiers of premium parcel delivery are expected to be added for an additional fee.

The middle tier will reportedly be called "My Choice," and will allow customers to choose which day their order will be delivered to their door. The most expensive tier will allow consumers to select a delivery date and a specific time period.

Royal Mail chief commercial officer Nick Landon said in a video the company also planned to reduce duplication of services to avoid confusing customers, saying it would have "one product for every customer need across different brands".

“We’re looking at (whether) there are some products where we have different variants that might have had a good reason to launch at the time, but we can now simplify the setup of that product,” he added.

Royal Mail announced last month that Sunday parcel deliveries would be rolled out within weeks in a bid to grab a bigger share of the delivery market as it struggles to compete with e-commerce giant Amazon.

In addition, the Royal Mail recently launched a landmark government-funded drone delivery trial, marking a "significant" step forward for commercial drone delivery in the UK.

Royal Mail has become the first UK parcel delivery company to deliver mail via unmanned drone to the Isles of Scilly, more than 70 miles away. While the current trial will focus on critical medical deliveries, other parcels weighing up to 100kg from various retailers will also be delivered.

If successful, Royal Mail said it would consider expanding the technology across its wider delivery network to help deliver parcels to remote and hard-to-reach areas of the UK.

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