New retail plan for Post Office

The Post Office plans to adopt a similar stance to retail groups such as Tesco by giving descriptor names to its 18,500 branches nationwide, in order to create clearer definition of what services each provides.

The plan to generate new sub-divisions is part of a wider programme of change that will be overseen by Oxfordshire consultancy Marketplace Design. The project comes as the Post Office seeks to increase its profile in non-traditional areas.

The design group has been appointed as the Post Office’s brand consultancy and will be developing new concepts for the Internet, internal documentation for staff and corporate identity, as well as the organisation’s retail presence.

Post Office head of marketing Deborah Maxwell says: “The next five years will see some major changes in retail formats. We’ll be taking the Tesco route by making them clearer for our customers; something like Post Office Metro or Post Office Express. It will create more distinction by using descriptions like Post Office local or rural. It depends on what each individual branch has to offer.”

Of Marketplace’s areas of development, Maxwell adds: “It will be a multi-channel approach to make people aware that there are other ways of contacting the Post Office.”