The company claims to be the first to offer such a service – and remarkably, it is not charging any premium for it. It says it has reconfigured its operations to allow this option to form an element of its standard service offering.

The service has been rolled out over recent months, and GeoPost says 1,500 companies have already signed up it, including mobile phone operator network Three and online gift company iwantoneofthose.com.

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Same-day home deliveries, already more widely available than ever before, could become even more common if a service called Shutl takes off.

It is a combined internet hub and technology platform for retailers wanting to offer same-day deliveries, and it works by allocating deliveries to one of a range of participating courier companies. Already on board are eCourier, Lewis Day and Excel Couriers. Initial users include fashion retailers Georgina Goodman and Start London.

Whilst it aims to build up national coverage, Shutl also makes strong play of its ability to empower local multi-channel retailers, pointing out that they are likely to have stock available for immediate delivery in their own area. It is starting in the London area, but plans to expand nationwide during 2010.

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Despite mixed reports on the volumes of shopping being undertaken on the high street this Christmas, it looks as though the online sector is already breaking records.

According to Retail Decisions, a specialist in card fraud prevention, payment processing and card issuing, 7 December saw the busiest hour’s online shopping on record (£33 million changed hands), and 1.43 pm was the busiest online shopping minute ever (£1.4 million).

Online retail association IMRG says that if consumers continue to spend at this rate, the December figure will exceed its December forecast of £5 billion.

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Home furnishing retailer Habitat is now selling online to customers both in the UK and continental, and has appointed iForce to handle fulfilment of both domestic and international orders.

The operation involves the retailer’s home accessories range, is understood to be the first for iForce to include cross-border fulfilment.

iForce is running the operation from its 63,000 square ft shared facility at Bromford Gate, Birmingham, where it is stocking several thousand home accessory stock-keeping units, which are replenished from Habitat’s warehouse in Wallingford.

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A parcel delivery service for packages of under 2kg, pitched directly in competition with Royal Mail's second class mail service, is to be launched by Home Delivery Network under the brand name HDN Lite.

It specifically targets businesses despatching large volumes of sub-2kg parcels – items such as entertainment products, books, electronics and clothing. HDN emphasises that it will not handle letters, but can accept the kind of small packets that are typical of Royal Mail's home shopping delivery business.

It is already up and running, and has been taken up by some of HDN's existing customers, including The Book People and Findel. HDN says this work alone is projected to amount to 2 million parcels a year.

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Consumers having home shopping delivered by Parcelforce Worldwide (which is not affected by the current strike action at Royal Mail) are to be given the option to have their goods delivered to the nearest post office as their first choice, rather than just as a fallback following a failed delivery, as at present.

In addition, the organisation is developing a system that will allow it to meet a demand from retailers to offer deferred, day-definite deliveries.

Although Parcelforce Worldwide can already handle day-definite deliveries, at the moment the retailer has to retain product ordered in this way until delivery is due, then release it into the Parcelforce system.

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