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CouriersPlease goes on-demand for Christmas

Nick Hall

Heading into the busiest retail period of the year, Australian delivery facilitators are teaming up to ensure Christmas orders are finding their way to the right person – however they want to receive it.

CouriersPlease has teamed up with Melbourne-based GoFetch, in a partnership that enables the brand to offer a point-to-point delivery service at any time with GPS tracking.

GoFetch’s couriers, or Fetchers, use their own delivery method (bike, walking, skating, driving, etc) to deliver parcels in under two hours within the same city.

“It’s a premium offering, perfect for those who need items delivered out of hours or urgently – whether it be for receiving important documents, delivery flowers or gifts on time, or picking up items that were accidently left behind,” CouriersPlease head of commercial and transformation Jessica Ip said.

At the same time, small-business parcel delivery service Sendle has partnered with parcel pick-up, drop-off network Hubbed to introduce a 24/7 drop-off service for Sendle customers at select BP service stations, newsagents and pharmacies around the country.

The partnership is the latest move by Sendle to provide an alternative to Australia Post for small businesses and is designed to meet evolving customer expectations around convenience.

“Working with tens of thousands of Australian small businesses every day, we understand that they are incredibly diverse and often lack the resources that bigger businesses have,” Sendle chief executive James Chin-Moody said.

“[Our] aim is to provide affordable, reliable services to its customers and [provide] them with access to Hubbed’s network.”

Australia Post has responded by investing in its own delivery service, having announced a $300m investment in its parcel processing abilities earlier this year to meet the growing demands of online shopping.

“It’s no secret that online shopping in Australia is growing,” Australia Post Group chief operating officer Bob Black said.

“Consumers are buying more and more online internationally and domestically, and as a result we’re processing and delivering more parcels than ever before.”

At the time, Black noted 2017’s holiday period was the company’s biggest peak period, delivering over 37m parcels nationally in December alone; with a record 2.5m parcels in a single day.