Royal Mail has revealed it will offer timed delivery slots next year, competing with market rival Amazon.

Customers using the service, first reported by the Mail on Sunday, will need to pay a premium.

In a video to employees, seen by the tabloid, chief commercial officer Nick Landon said that the business is cutting back its existing range of services and is starting to develop new options for customers.

“Longer term, we're looking at what customers actually need and how we can reflect that in our products. And we want a three-tier product portfolio because three is a magic number. People always like to choose from three,” Landon reportedly states in the video.

The Royal Mail exec said that the three tiers would be “good”, “better”, and “best.”

“'We're looking at a 'good' product, the base product, and this will be built around [the idea of]: 'I'll leave it to Royal Mail to choose how it comes to me',” he added.

Landon said that the advantage of the lowest tier was that the company could move a parcel “as efficiently as [it] want[s] through [its] network”, which would reduce costs and customer prices.

In March, the postal service announced it was launching its first ever Sunday delivery service.

The company said it was launching its seven-day-a-week trial service to meet consumer demands, as customers increasingly expect Sunday deliveries as part of their online shopping experience.

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