Delivery company Hermes has announced that it is to invest heavily in its ‘Business Accounts’ service for SMEs. In a statement the company has said that it is “investing a six-figure sum to support the phenomenal growth of its Business Accounts”.

Currently the service is being used by more than 650 sole traders, ‘internet power sellers’ as well as SME retailers across the UK who send parcels to their customers.

Hermes is well known for delivering parcels for many of the UK’s top brands, with over 80% of the largest companies having accounts with the delivery firm. However, it also processes more than 10 million parcels a year for its ‘Business Account’ clients, each of whom deliver more than 150 parcels a week. These SMEs work in a number of sectors including sports equipment, clothing and fashion, homewares and campaign accessories.

The Hermes Business Accounts service was launched two years ago, and offers a range of benefits including free van collection as well as a flexible pricing scale whereby the more parcels a business ships the more money it saves. Each account holder is allocated a dedicated account manager and have access to a UK based customer service team.

Mike Antwoon, Sales Director of Hermes, said: “A Hermes Business Account is the perfect option for SMEs as they can benefit from economies of scale. In many cases, Business Accounts retailers have experienced incredible growth and become so successful they are now part of Corporate Accounts.

“This investment highlights the tremendous success of the service and we look forward to continuing our impressive growth in 2016.”

Fast growing SMEs are a good target market in an as yet fully mature e-commerce industry. Where some businesses are actively seeking underdeveloped e-commerce markets abroad, Hermes approach to foster smaller businesses in the UK seems like an intelligent approach before UK e-commerce reaches saturation.