Sir; Consignia's initiative, Local Collect, which gives consumers an option to collect their mail-ordered items from selected post offices is interesting. There have been a number of such schemes mooted over the last year or so, mainly looking at petrol stations or railway stations as pickup points. In South Africa, there is a "locked box" scheme where you receive a discreet lockable box inside your garden wall, to which goods are delivered ­ you and the delivery company each has a key. One of the biggest challenges in these schemes is in chilled and refrigerated products. They cannot be guaranteed to remain chilled so who will take the responsibility, Consignia, the retailer or the consumer? Will Consignia invest substantially in refrigerated storage space with a low probability of return on investment, or will the service simply exclude perishable goods, thus excluding grocers? If so, the problem would remain. I believe we will eventually see dedicated pick-up points with chiller facilities, possibly run by the logistics companies, as an extension of their broader service to retailers. The only problem is that this begins to sound like a neighbourhood store,whether in the post office or elsewhere. So have we just come full circle and found another way of ordering goods from our "local" store? The benefit of selling over the internet for direct delivery is reduction in the cost of goods increased and convenience. If we tip the scale more heavily to convenience with pick-up points, somebody is increasing their costs, reverting the web model to the store-based model. The question is, where is the balance point between cost, convenience and profitability for home delivery? Mark Dorgan Head of Retail, Consumer Products Retail & Distribution Cap Gemini Ernst & Young {{LETTERS }}

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