More than one in four post offices have now had a ‘branch MOT’, presenting retailers with “at least £12,615 per year” in potential savings.

The scheme, launched in 2022, includes area manager visits who recommend changes to post offices and wider retail businesses, designed to cut costs and find opportunities.

The Post Office (PO) said 2,781 branches had undertaken an MOT, with 60% stating they found the exercise valuable and 41% made changes based on the findings.

PO group chief retail officer Martin Roberts told Better Retailing a common area of change was aligning staffing and trading hours with customer demand levels.

He said: “This can mean branches are better equipped to manage customer flow at peak times, and also appreciate efficiencies during periods when branches could be overstaffed. In some examples, we have been able to encourage an increase in opening hours for PO services through use of the EPoS alongside postmasters’ retail counters.”

Roberts also revealed plans to help branches get better deals on non-PO products, telling Better Retailing: “The retail team at PO has been working over the past year with wholesale suppliers to give postmasters easy access to all their retail and cash equipment needs at preferential rates. Currently in pilot, the hope is that this will be made available to all very soon.”

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