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Today Australia Post announced initiatives to better serve the e-commerce market, including its trial of parcel collection lockers at sites across Australia.“With its extensive retail and delivery networks, Australia Post is the best option for domestic parcel delivery for online shopping,” said POAAL CEO Ian Kerr.LPOs, with their convenient locations and personal service, have long known the importance of eBay sellers to their business. “The first stop for eBay sellers for their postal and packaging needs is their local LPO. eBay sellers are valued customers for LPOs,” said Mr Kerr.The extended network of parcel collection lockers should help ease the pressure on some LPOs that are handling large volumes of parcels. Growth in parcel delivery volumes in recent years has resulted in an increase in the number of parcels at LPOs awaiting customer collection.“It is a balancing act to service the customer and not disadvantage Licensees,” Mr Kerr said. “Parcels awaiting collection help drive foot traffic to the post office network. People picking up parcels may make other discretionary purchases at LPOs.”24-hour parcel collection lockers have been in operation in Europe for some years, and are suited to areas of high density population. These lockers are ideal for customers who aren’t at home to accept delivery of parcels and who find it difficult to collect parcels from post offices during working hours.Australia Post's announcement, and its emphasis on technology, gives further weight to POAAL's calls for Government funding for the installation of POS technology at manual LPOs. The 464 manual LPOs across Australia have limited ability to capitalise on any technology-related initiatives from Australia Post.“We look forward to further discussing these proposed strategies with Australia Post in greater detail later this week so that we can fully assess the impact they may have on our members’ businesses,” Mr Kerr said.
