ONLINE retailing giant Amazon has announced the installation of lockers at Merseyrail train stations across the city.

The lockers – located at Liverpool Central, Liverpool South Parkway and Moorfields, as well as Southport – have been hailed by Amazon as a convenient pick up point for customers on the move.

Merseyrail has welcomed them, seeing their arrival as a way of enhancing its “passenger experience".

But the announcement has been greeted as an encroachment too far by Bold Street bookshop News From Nowhere. It said the move was a cynical attempt to further undercut traditional city centre traders, describing Amazon as“the Number One bully in UK retail”.

Customers of Amazon select a location when they get to the checkout and are then given a unique pick-up code in order to retrieve their items from a locker, accessible 24 hours a day.

Kaj Mook, customer services director of Merseyrail, said: “We are constantly trying to enhance the passenger experience – ensuring that customers get the most out of the station environment and ensuring that it’s working for them. These collection points illustrate our commitment to evolving and adapting, ensuring that our network is both relevant and responsive to passenger needs.”

However, Mandy DeVere, from News From Nowhere, one of the last independent city centre bookshops in the UK, said: "It may be convenient but Amazon's business model was 24/7 online ordering and home delivery. That's obviously not working for it as well any more,  as more shops – including us – take them on with online click and collect services.

“This move is designed to further undercut those shopkeepers unable to compete on price, traders already struggling with sky high business rates and with honouring their own tax liabilities. Is that the sort of world we want to live in?"

She added: "Prices of books have gone up overall. Amazon demands a 60 percent discount from publishers, an independent bookshop can only get
35 per cent at best. It's the number one bully in UK retail and authors and readers ultimately bear the cost."

Seattle-based Amazon which, in 2013, paid just £4.2m in UK tax despite selling goods here worth £4.3bn, said it made “perfect sense” to install lockers at a Merseyrail stations.

Christopher North, UK managing director,  said: "Amazon lockers are the delivery option of choice for many customers who want to pick up their shopping at a time and place that suits them best."

Mike Doran, of Liverpool's Business Improvement District which represents hundreds of city centre retailers, described the announcement as an “interesting development”.

“We work closely with Merseyrail on promotions and campaigns to drive footfall into Liverpool city centre,” he said. “We will be talking to them to see if this is an idea that can be expanded at stations to support those stores who don't already have a click and collect scheme in place.”