Terminals add value for retailers

What options do terminals such as My Post 24 offer senders and recipients and how do they add value?

Convenience for recipients – added value online

The last mile of a parcel delivery can often prove to be its undoing. That’s because recipients are often not home when the parcel is due to arrive.

Swiss Post offers customers a number of options in an effort to solve this dilemma. Using the “My consignments” online service, customers can manage their consignment – even if it is already in transit or waiting in a branch for collection. The customer experience can be optimized even further by using the “My Post 24” service.

“My Post 24” – Collection points becoming more popular

Collection points and terminals are becoming extremely popular in the retail industry. In Germany, for example, department stores and shopping malls are putting far more effort into integrating collection points or “lockers”, as they are often described.

In an effort to improve the customer experience, Swiss Post offers its end customers PickPost and My Post 24 in the Digital Commerce API – a single interface for everything.

The “My Post 24” service promise lies in its reliable delivery options. The locations of the “My Post 24” terminals can be found using the Swiss Post location search. This is also included in the “PickPost/My Post 24” module in the “Digital Commerce API”. The network of terminals is constantly being expanded. In Switzerland, customers already have the option of collecting their consignments from over 155 terminals.

The advantages of “My Post 24”

There are many advantages for customers who use "My Post 24", which can also be communicated very effectively by retailers.

• The collection point is an alternative delivery address from which parcels and letters can be collected around the clock, even items with track and trace (registered mail, international parcels). Recipients are given a QR code to use for collection. They can even sign for the consignment or pay for it using any major credit or debit card directly at the terminal.
• The ”My Post 24” terminal also accepts returns. Customers can also drop off their own, pre-franked consignments.
• If the recipient of a consignment was not at home, the collection point may be chosen as an alternative to picking up the consignment from a nearby branch. Via “My consignments”, customers receive an electronic notification with the required QR code. There is no need to wait for a notification in their private letter box. Recipients have access to their consignments 24/7.
• The terminal can also be used as a locker. This means that customers can use it for their own personal business.

The “locker” option is also an interesting one for high-street retail. The collection point becomes an extension of the shop counter.

Parcel terminals also offer added value for high-street retail

By having deliveries sent to terminals using the “My Post 24” service, customers no longer have to worry about parcels arriving when they are not at home. The frustration of waiting for a parcel, only to miss its arrival, is therefore avoided.

With these service options, high-street retail, in particular, has the opportunity to create and exploit synergies with online shops. If the “Digital Commerce API” has been correctly integrated into the online shop, the customer has the option of choosing between staffed collection services such as “PickPost” and terminals with “My Post 24”. Click & collect in high-street retail can be cleverly combined and enhanced with the “My Post 24” service. Retailers are thus in a position to meet all customer needs when it comes to shopping, collection or posting.

As reported by Amazon, around 60 percent more US customers sent their order to a collection point during the Christmas period in 2019 compared with the previous year. The figure clearly shows just how much the business of parcel delivery is changing. Front door deliveries may gradually become the exception, rather than the rule. With “My Post 24”, retailers are already able to provide their customers with the most reliable delivery option of all. It is worth being prepared.