Guernsey Post has opened a UK parcel hub in Portsmouth, so islanders can direct their post there when retailers require a UK address.

Islanders can sign up for the myUKaddress service for free.

They will receive a unique UK delivery address that will see their goods sent to the new Portsmouth hub, and onto Guernsey to be delivered by local posties.

Guernsey Post's Cassandra Fish says there is high demand for this kind of service.

“We know that a frustration of island life is trying to shop online and finding out at checkout or worse days later that the item you want is restricted to mainland delivery.

Our new UK hub removes this barrier for island customers by offering a UK address.

Once items arrive at the hub, we ship these to Guernsey and deliver these together with our regular parcel service.

Signing up to myUKaddress is completely free, and after that we’ve introduced a simple, straightforward pricing structure for each parcel.”

Guernsey Post is launching an Online Directory, RockShopper, at the same time.

This lists the online retailers that either deliver directly to Guernsey or that can be accessed using the new myUKaddress service.

Cassandra Fish says local businesses have been considered.

“Some local businesses have already responded very positively to being featured in our directory, which is great as we know some customers would love to shop locally from the comfort of their armchair.

We’ve also introduced a special local delivery rate available to all local businesses offering customer deliveries.

If any local businesses are interested in learning more, we’d encourage them to get in touch.”