Shopify Adds Royal Mail Pickup Points at UK Checkout

Shopify Adds Royal Mail Pickup Points at UK Checkout

Released on 15 October 2026, a Shopify update makes Royal Mail a pickup point provider across the UK, so buyers can have an order sent to a Post Office branch or a Royal Mail delivery office and collect it there instead of waiting in for a courier. Read the Shopify Changelog release note here.

Pickup points are not new to Shopify in the UK. Shopify's Help Center lists Evri and Royal Mail as the two UK carriers that support them, so Royal Mail is the second UK network rather than the first. What Royal Mail adds is its own collection network. Its pickup service, Local Collect, sends parcels to Post Office branches and to Royal Mail Customer Service Points, which Shopify describes as Royal Mail delivery offices where customers can collect items. For a UK store, that adds a second, separate set of collection counters to offer at checkout.

The change lives in the admin, under shipping settings, so nothing appears on a storefront until a merchant switches it on and sets a rate. That makes it an opt-in decision rather than a new default, and one worth making deliberately. Pickup points come with checkout conditions that hide the option from some buyers, and parcels sent this way follow their own rules once they leave your warehouse.

How it works

Setting it up happens in the Shopify admin. Go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery, and open Pickup points under Additional delivery methods. Choose a UK location, turn on Ship to pickup points from this location, then edit the pickup point rate so it includes Royal Mail and set what you want to charge. Shopify's guide to setting up pickup points says the rate can be flat, weight based or price based, and that entering 0 offers it free. The same steps are available in the Shopify mobile app.

At checkout, an eligible buyer sees shipping to a pickup point as a delivery method, then picks a location from a map or a list. Before committing, they see its name, address, opening hours and price. A pickup point that is full is hidden until it has room again. When the parcel arrives, the buyer gets an SMS or an email saying it is ready to collect. Where pickup points are offered is not configured separately: Shopify derives the pickup zones from the shipping zones already set for that fulfilment location, so adding or removing a zone changes where pickup points appear. The one exception is a shipping profile managed by an app, which pickup points do not follow.

Behind the scenes, Royal Mail delivers to pickup points through Local Collect, which is available on Tracked 24 (next business day) and Tracked 48 (one to two business days). Shopify's page on shipping with Royal Mail lists two pickup point types, Post Office branches and Royal Mail Customer Service Points, and says merchants cannot choose which type a parcel goes to. Labels are charged at rates based on Shopify's own account with Royal Mail, and the usual Royal Mail rules on Shopify apply: UK domestic delivery only, a fulfilment location in the UK, a maximum of 20 kg and 61 x 46 x 46 cm, and dispatch within 7 days of buying the label. If a buyer never collects, Royal Mail holds the parcel for 18 days and then returns it to you.

Examples / Use cases

Take a skincare brand whose customers are mostly out at work during the day. For them, a home delivery that arrives while nobody is in is a nuisance. With pickup points switched on, those customers can choose a Post Office branch near the office or near home at checkout, check its opening hours before they pay, and wait for the message that says the parcel is ready. The brand can price that option below its home delivery rate, or use a price based rate to make it free above a basket value, and see over a few weeks whether buyers take it up.

A jewellery or accessories store has a different reason to offer it. Small, valuable parcels are exactly the ones a merchant would rather not see left on a doorstep or with a neighbour, and a pickup point keeps the parcel behind a counter until the buyer collects it. The limit to keep in mind is cover: Shopify's Royal Mail page says Royal Mail offers up to £75 of cover for lost and damaged parcels, so higher-value orders may still call for a different service or your own insurance.

Some stores will find it fits only part of their catalogue. A homeware brand selling cushions and large mirrors can offer pickup points for the small items, but anything over 20 kg or the size limits cannot go through Royal Mail on Shopify at all. A merchant holding stock in two warehouses will also see the option drop out for some baskets, because pickup points need every physical item in the cart to ship from one location that holds enough stock for the whole order.

What this means for UK merchants

The main gain is choice at checkout. A buyer who cannot be in for a delivery now has another way to receive the order, and a store already using Evri pickup points can add a second network without changing carrier for home delivery. It follows the arrival of DHL Express shipping labels for UK merchants, which we covered in August, and together the two widen the range of carriers a UK store can manage from the Shopify admin.

The trade-off is the accelerated checkout buttons. Shopify's guide says that if a customer pays with Apple Pay, Google Pay, Amazon Pay or PayPal by choosing it in the first step of checkout, shipping to pickup points is not available. Stores that lean on those express buttons should expect a share of buyers never to see the new option, and may want to say on their delivery information page that pickup points are offered through the standard checkout. Shopify's list names those four methods only, so test any other payment button rather than assuming it behaves the same way. B2B checkouts are excluded as well.

Pickup points also open a gap between a parcel arriving and the customer actually receiving it, which matters for your terms. Under section 29 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, goods remain at the trader's risk until they come into the physical possession of the consumer or a person the consumer identified to take them. Risk passes on delivery to the carrier only when the consumer commissioned a carrier the trader did not offer, and here you are the one offering Royal Mail. The 14-day cancellation period is framed the same way: regulation 30 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 starts it when the goods come into the physical possession of the consumer, or of a person other than the carrier whom the consumer identified. The cautious reading is to count cancellation windows from collection rather than from the ready-to-collect message, and to treat a parcel lost at a pickup point as yours to resolve with the customer. Take legal advice if you need a firm position for your terms.

If you are still planning a store, shipping is one of the early decisions in our step-by-step guide to building a Shopify store. For merchants who want delivery options set up and tested properly as part of a wider build or checkout review, our Shopify web design team can scope it.

Practical considerations

Pickup point orders placed with a supported carrier, Royal Mail included, cannot be edited after the order is placed. Plan how customer service will handle a buyer who picks the wrong branch or wants to add an item, because editing the order is not an option, and make sure the team knows that before the first query arrives. Uncollected parcels need a plan too. After 18 days they come back to you, and you should decide in advance whether you refund, resend or contact the buyer first, then say so in your shipping policy. Shopify also recommends including Royal Mail's terms of service in your store's shipping policy.

Know the claims process before you need it. Lost parcel claims go through Shopify Support no earlier than 7 business days after the due delivery date and no later than 37 calendar days from posting, and damage claims within 80 calendar days. A lost claim needs a Denial of Receipt signed by the customer, and damage claims need photos of the product and the packaging. Check Northern Ireland orders as well: Shopify's Royal Mail page says that since 1 May 2025, labels for orders shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland cannot be bought on Shopify's carrier accounts, because of the Windsor Framework. Finally, do not promise lockers. Shopify's general guide lists self-service lockers as a pickup point type for some carriers, but its Royal Mail table names only Post Office branches and Customer Service Points, so describe the option to buyers in those terms.

Location settings now matter for tax as well as delivery. For the most recent related change, see how Shopify UK VAT now follows the fulfilment location, which decides whether GB orders over £135 carry VAT at checkout.

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