Parcelforce Worldwide is a

courier A courier is a person or organization that delivers a message, package or letter from one place or person to another place or person. Typically, a courier provides their courier service on a commercial contract basis; however, some couriers are ...

and

logistics Logistics is the part of supply chain management that deals with the efficient forward and reverse flow of goods, services, and related information from the point of origin to the Consumption (economics), point of consumption according to the ...

service in the United Kingdom. Parcelforce Worldwide is a trading name of

Royal Mail Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels) ...

, which is a subsidiary of International Distribution Services, and is organised within the UK Parcels, International and Letters division of the group. The company delivers to destinations worldwide, using an international partner network. Parcelforce Worldwide is a provider of express delivery services covering 99.6% of the world's population, with over 6,500 employees. Its European delivery partner, General Logistics Systems (GLS), is also a subsidiary of International Distribution Services and delivers more than one million parcels a day across 34 countries in Europe. Parcelforce Worldwide is a direct competitor of other worldwide delivery brands, such as

DHL DHL (originally named after founders Dalsey, Hillblom and Lynn) is a multinational Import-Export Expert Company, founded in the United States and headquartered in Bonn, Germany. It provides courier, package delivery, and express mail service, ...

, DX Group,

FedEx FedEx Corporation, originally known as Federal Express Corporation, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company specializing in Package delivery, transportation, e-commerce, and ...

and UPS. Parcelforce Limited operates a "

hub and spoke A hub is the central part of a wheel that connects the axle to the wheel itself. Hub, HUB, or hubs may refer to: Geography Pakistan * Hub Tehsil, Balochistan, an administrative division of southern pakistan ** Hub, Balochistan, capital city o ...

" collection and delivery system with two hubs in the West Midlands, south of

Coventry Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...

. One hub is for parcels for the United Kingdom, and the other for international parcels. The hub for the United Kingdom, one of the country's largest buildings, is a highly automated tracking and sorting centre covering and can handle up to 58,500 parcels an hour.

History

The Parcel Post service of Royal Mail was started in 1883, though parcel services operated by the railway companies, later Red Star Parcels and British Road Services, were also heavily used for many decades. Royal Mail was split into three divisions in 1986 and in August 1990, Royal Mail Parcels was rebranded as Parcelforce. In July 1992, the

Secretary of State for Trade and Industry The secretary of state for business and trade (business secretary), is a Secretary of State (United Kingdom), secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Department for Business and Trade. The incumb ...

Michael Heseltine Michael Ray Dibdin Heseltine, Baron Heseltine, (; born 21 March 1933) is a British politician. Having begun his career as a property developer, he became one of the founders of the publishing house Haymarket Media Group in 1957. Heseltine se ...

, proposed a privatisation of the Parcelforce business. He argued that the company provided most of its services to businesses rather than individuals, and that the competitive market it operated in meant there was no need for it to remain a publicly owned company. In March 2002, the universal parcels service was transferred to

, leaving Parcelforce to concentrate on time-guaranteed, next-day and two-day express deliveries. In January 2007, Parcelforce Worldwide became the first express carrier in the United Kingdom to give its customers the option to offset the carbon emissions associated with the delivery of their parcels. The company allowed customers to donate 5p for a delivery for the United Kingdom, or 10p for an international delivery to the Woodland Trust. Parcelforce would then match the donation. In October 2012, Royal Mail announced an investment of £75 million in Parcelforce Worldwide planned over four years, which would involve the opening of new processing centres in Chorley, Lancashire and depots in Basingstoke, Hampshire and Bodmin, Cornwall. In September 2021, Aaron Barnes took over as Managing Director of Parcelforce Worldwide.

Depot network

Parcelforce Worldwide operates its collection and delivery services via a network of 54 local depots.

References

External links

* {{UK postal system Royal Mail Logistics companies of the United Kingdom Transport companies established in 1990 Express mail Postal system of the United Kingdom 1990 establishments in the United Kingdom