Logistics company Toll Holdings has announced plans to enter the consumer parcel delivery market  in partnership with Victorian newsagents.

Toll has signed a deal with the newsagents as part of its plan to build a network of more than 3000 online shopping pick-up points across the country, and will begin offering package recipients a choice of delivery times, weekend deliveries and alternative retail location parcel pick-up.

The Victorian Newsagents Association (VANA), through its  relationship with the Australian Newsagents Federation, has developed the new service under the name Nparcel, which will be trialled with 100 newsagencies.

"Newsagencies are part of daily life, being one of the most frequently visited retail outlets in Australia. It makes sense that newsagents use their convenient opening hours to provide their customers with increased service and greater flexibility to collect their parcels," said VANA chairman Gerard Munday.

"Australian online retail sales in 2010 were $12 billion and it is estimated this figure will grow to $17,4 billion by 2014 - that's a growth of 10.2 per cent per annum," Munday said.

"Eighty per cent of parcels purchased online are delivered to the consumer's home with 40 per cent of those deliveries failing due to the consumer not being home," he said. "Australian newsagents must endeavour to get their fair share of this market."

Earlier this year, newsagency software company Tower Systems announced plans to introduce the ParcelPoint system through its network of newsagents using the Tower point-of-sale technology.

The ParcelPoint service, introduced last year into Australia after launches in Europe and the US, claims to offer a new revenue opportunity for newsagents and convenience stores.

ParcelPoint customers, who pay a fee to access the service, get an email/SMS notification when their parcel is ready to collect, freeing them from having to stay at home all day or queue at the post office.

ParcelPoint Australia said it had already signed up many newsagents in NSW and was now ready for a national roll-out.