During National Consumer Week and the busiest shopping season of the year, Citizens Advice is calling on retailers to work with parcel operators to make it easier for disabled people to make their delivery needs known.
The charity found almost 1 in 3 disabled people missed a delivery because they weren’t given enough time to get to the door. It found 1 in 4 postal service users who are disabled say they feel rushed, anxious or irritated when accepting deliveries at home.
Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for postal services and is calling on retailers and parcel operators to work together to let disabled consumers explain any additional delivery needs when shopping. This would allow people to outline their accessibility needs such as needing more time to get to the door or to specify places to leave missed deliveries that are accessible.
Over 13 million people in the UK have a disability and together they influence more than £80 billion of spending each year. Citizens Advice found 1 in 10 disabled people in the past year have avoided using home delivery or have items sent to friends or family members because they find it too difficult.
Citizens Advice has developed a delivery charter for disabled consumers that sets out guidelines for retailers and operators to improve online shopping and delivery experiences.
This includes:
- Retailers and operators working together to ensure disabled consumers can specify any additional delivery needs.
- Making sure all pick up and drop off points meet the needs of disabled consumers. This means ensuring there is level access at each location, accessibility features are renewed annually, and providing clear information online about the accessibility features available at each pick up and drop off point.
Citizens Advice recently worked with Post Office Limited to ensure accessibility information for every post office in the UK will be listed on its website. Until this work, Post Office Limited did not have any disabled access information on its branch finder.
Gillian Guy, Chief Executive of Citizens Advice, said:
“During the busiest season for online shopping, we’re calling on retailers to make sure deliveries work for disabled consumers.
“We found some people are missing deliveries, and even avoiding online shopping altogether, because they feel rushed or anxious when accepting deliveries at home.
“This should be an easy fix for retailers who have a duty to take into account people’s accessibility needs.
“As the statutory consumer advocate for post, we’re calling on companies to make sure they’re not leaving disabled consumers behind.”
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