With Christmas just a few days away, many consumers are making last minute gift purchases and trying their best to ensure the gifts arrive to their destination without depleting their wallet. But in San Francisco it will be a different story.
The U.S. Postal Service is joining forces with 1-800-Flowers in an effort to offer same day-delivery services to select consumers looking to send last minute gourmet gift ideas.
The new fulfillment option will not be offered nationwide, only San Francisco area residents can take part. According to the release, delivery services will only be available for purchases involving four brands from 1-800-Flowers including The Popcorn Factory, Cheryls, Fannie May and 1-800-Baskets.
Vice president of Domestic Products with the United States Post Office, Gary Reblin, said in the a release “Building relationships with prominent retailers like 1-800-FLOWERS.COM will help us leverage our capabilities by making same day delivery a standard option on retail websites.”
During this year long trial run, the release said that consumers in San Francisco will be able to use Metro Post online or in-person at retail stores that carry the gifts from one of the four brands of 1-800-Flowers.
The daily cut-off time for purchases delivered by Metro Post is 2:00 p.m. with deliveries to occur between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.
Same day-delivery service is nothing new at 1-800-Flowers, in the release president Chris McCann said, “We’ve been doing it with same-day delivery floral deliveries for more than 35 years and now with the Postal Service’s Metro Post service, we’re very excited to be able to expand our same-day gift offerings.”
Consumers outside of the San Francisco area might soon see other retailers offering same-day delivery in the future. According to Reblin, who said in the release, “The Postal Service is committed to building and driving strategic relationships to improve our customers’ experience. USPS will work with multiple retailers that have both an online presence and physical ‘brick and mortar’ stores or warehouses within a given metro area.”
Erin Lynch is the associate editor at Multichannel Merchant. Erin can be reached by emailing her at [email protected]. You can also follow her on Twitter at @LynchMCM or on LinkedIn.