Two man delivery group Panther Warehousing plans to launch a Sunday delivery service later this year, following a successful take up of the Saturday service the group launched in 2013.

Over the two years since its implementation, demand for Saturday deliveries has grown by 135%, so MD Colin McCarthy said moving into Sundays was the next logical step.

He said: “Even we were surprised by how quickly our Saturday service took off, which suggested there was a huge pent-up demand for deliveries outside the working week.

“For the last three or four weeks we've been doing about 2,000 deliveries on a Saturday, whereas normally we do about 500 or 600. It's unbelievable. And I'm expecting the Sunday to take off as well.”

McCarthy added that the group had already done some Sunday deliveries due to customer demand, without it usually being offered as a service.

However, he predicted that the Sunday service will require a shift in consumer culture before it can take off.

He told MT: “I think it will take us longer to get there than on a Saturday. Sunday is family day, I think that's something that's still in everybody's minds.

“It will be a cultural change. We launched Saturdays nationwide, but we're going to start around the M25 and Birmingham with Sundays to see how it goes.”