WH Smith, which has already taken on the role of many Crown post offices across the UK is to expand the service with the inclusion of DHL postal points aimed primarily at Ebay users. The first postal point was introduced on Wednesday, allowing customers to purchase pre-packaged boxes.

According to the Press Association, WH Smith has seen a strong performance at its motorway, airport and station stores with a 15% hike in underlying full-year profits on Thursday.

The group said it expected a "competitive Christmas trading season", but hoped to buoy business with the roll-out of six more standalone book stores before the end of the year at airports, taking its total to 15.

Steve Lawson, editor for Hellmail the postal industry news site said:

"This is really what should be happening to the entire postal network. It always struck me as odd that postal delivery has been liberalised but the counter network is still largely centred around Royal Mail business."

"With post offices already struggling in many areas, it must surely make sense to give customers greater choice. There is a plethora of parcel delivery companies in the UK but access points are few and far between. It would make sense, long term, to have postal access points that provided a range of options. If the health of the post office network hinges almost entirely on the post office card account, perhaps its time we looked at multi-points that work on behalf of many other operators."

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