Hermes and Volkswagen have announced a new partnership to trial the UK’s first in-car delivery service, We Deliver.
The new service is being trialled in Milton Keynes and has been designed to boost first-time delivery rates and provide further convenience for consumers.
The service is available to Volkswagen owners with cars produced in 2019 and beyond, equipped with the We Connect Plus package. Customers can sign-up for in-car deliveries using their Volkswagen ID.
Users receive an SMS or email when a parcel arrives at the delivery depot giving them the option to have it delivered to their car. If they accept, they authenticate themselves using their Volkswagen ID, which enables the courier to see which deliveries have been converted to in-car.
The courier is then given a one-time, time-specific access to open the vehicle which can only be used by Hermes, and only for the time specified. GPS co-ordinates for the parked car are sent to the courier who provides photo evidence of the successful delivery and confirms that the trunk is securely locked.
Volkswagen estimates that if the trial is successful, the service will be rolled out gradually across the UK.
Adrian Berry, innovation product owner at Hermes UK, said, “We are really pleased to be partnering with Volkswagen UK and look forward to working with them to develop this further. It is the first trial of its kind in the UK and supports our mission to make parcels more personal. Further to this, we envisage that in-car delivery services will increase first-time delivery rates reducing the number of delivery vans on our streets.”
Claire McGreal, brand strategy and mobility services manager at Volkswagen UK, added, “We are excited to have Hermes on board as our first courier partner to trial We Deliver in the UK. Feedback from users in Germany, where the scheme is already live, has been consistently positive and we hope to begin rolling out gradually across the UK by late 2020.”