Amazon's corner shop delivery service trialled

Friday, August 24, 2012 - 13:05 by Simon Crisp

E-commerce giant Amazon is looking for new ways to deliver items to its millions of customers across the UK and has just started testing a new scheme, which will see parcels sent to local corner shops for collection.

When the scheme is fully up and running, an estimated 5000 corner shops will be participating, according to a report from The Telegraph.

This will mean that people who purchase products via safe shopping online will not have to wait around at home for the delivery to arrive, or simply miss it and then have to head to their local post office or courier depot.

One of the benefits of choosing corner shops for this scheme is that Amazon collections will be able to occur late in the evening, since this type of establishment is typically open much longer than normal high street outlets.

Amazon is also trialling its Collect+ initiative, which will make it possible to take products you purchased via safe shopping online back to the local corner shop, so that they can be returned to the retailer.

This will be a good setup for anyone who likes to purchase clothes online but might not always get a garment that is the right size or style.

Some people who shop online in the UK have the option to get their Amazon packages delivered to their place of work, so that they can pick them up during the day, but employees of offices where this is outlawed will certainly be pleased to hear about this new local collection scheme.

For the corner shops themselves, this will be a beneficial service to run, since it will mean that more people are actually visiting their shops, which could help to increase sales and drive local business forward.