New scheme launches whereby customers can collect orders from several businesses from one Northampton location

A new service has been designed whereby customers can order from more than one local business but collect from one Northampton shop.

During the second national lockdown, although non-essentials shops have to close, they can remain open for click and collect.

To support local businesses, Northampton Business Improvement District (BID) has designed a system whereby customers can order from different town centre businesses, over the phone or online, and then collect all items at once from one dedicated shop.

Located at 64 St Giles Street, the ‘phone or click and collect’ unit will open to the public tomorrow (November 12) and the scheme is open to all BID town centre businesses to participate in.

Mark Mullen, BID operations manager, added: “Northampton town centre BID is committed to encouraging people to continue to shop locally and we are here to support town centre businesses and to help them continue to trade.

“Supporting our local businesses has never been more important. This new scheme means businesses will be able to continue trading during this second national lockdown, albeit in a different way.

“Instead of welcoming shoppers into their stores, people will need to place their orders online or over the phone. Businesses will then parcel up and label orders and drop them off at our St Giles Street unit.

“This enables customers to collect all their shopping in one go – even if there are lots of orders from stores across the town centre.

“Everyone can continue to shop local, support local businesses but will not need to go to more than one place to pick everything up.

“With challenge comes opportunity and we are confident this new service will help businesses to keep trading and people to continue shopping local.”

Orders must still be placed with each business and payment must be taken online or over the phone.

The business will then ask for a preferred collection date and time from the dedicated shop, which can match up to other orders.

Rachel Roberts, who runs St Giles Street’s Mooch with husband Paul, added: “This new scheme is a huge help and means we can offer our customers the flexibility they’re looking for.

“When customers order online, they can tell us they want to collect their order at the new phone or click and collect unit on St Giles Street.

“When the order is ready, we pop it over to the collection point and send our customers a confirmation that their order is ready to collect.

“All they need is to show some ID and have their order number to hand.

“The beauty of this is that our customers can then collect all their shopping in one go – not just the orders they placed with us.

“We are also doing our own click and collect service for a few hours a day, but this service gives our customers even more flexibility and we are really excited about it.”

The service will operate Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm during lockdown and face masks must be worn when collecting orders.

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