Sitting at lunch yesterday, an idea popped into my head which I thought was quite good. Let’s see what you lot think!

The problem
Have you ever known that you’ve been expecting something important through the post but also known that no body will be home to receive said important letter/parcel? Can you not wait another 24 hours to collect the letter/parcel for it to be returned to the main local Post Office? Perhaps you’d prefer to opt to collect it direct from the post office…

The solution
An online service which would allow you to see all the items of post due for delivery to your home with the next round of deliveries. The system will identify items by the sender and state whether it’s a parcel (anything bigger from a Jiffy bag up) or a letter. Users will be able to opt to collect mail from the local main Post Office, either all mail or perhaps just parcels. Therefore users will know what to expect and be able to choose what they want delivered and what they want to collect.

I believe that most of the infrastucture is in place to facilitate the basic system where items to be delivered are listed, perhaps the work to implement the system would focus on the logistics of seperating post for collection. It does have some benefits for the Royal Mail in that it will potentially save posties time (knocking on doors and writing ‘we missed you’ cards) as well as save posties carrying around heavy parcels that cannot be delivered.

A good idea to bring the Royal Mail into the 21st Century? Should I get a patent filed?!