Online retailers in Britain look set to report a record December, as demand continued right upto Christmas and beyond, while delivery companies, in most cases, managed to keep up with
demand.Online data experts Experian Hitwise said that 26 December – or ‘Boxing Day’ as it is known inthe UK – was the single biggest online shopping day ever witnessed, with 96 million UK internetvisits to retail websites – a 19.5% increase from last year’s figures.
E-retail association IMRG said it would publish figures for December later this month, when allthe data comes in from retailers, but a spokesman told CEP-Research that preliminary and anecdotalreports suggested it had been strong. “We are quietly confident that December was a good month,” hesaid.
IMRG logistics director Andrew Starkey told CEP-Research that in terms of delivery difficulties,this year’s Christmas peak turned into something of “a non-event”, compared with theweather-related problems experienced last year. “In general, it seems that carriers were muchbetter prepared than in previous years,” he said. “That is a result of serious investments thatthey have made, in preparation for this year’s peak, which is what we had been hoping wouldhappen.”
Although there had been some extreme weather incidents, for example high winds in parts ofScotland, the absence of major snowfalls was obviously also a helpful factor, he added – as well asretailers and customers responding to advice on how to better manage peak demand. “There were someregional issues pre-Christmas, which all delivery companies can experience, which can be due toweather or operational issues, and the usual reports of queues at Royal Mail sorting offices,” headded. He said regional issues can sometimes just be the result of unexpected events at oneparticular sorting office, which can simply result from several drivers phoning in sick withflu.
Several reports in British media highlighted pre-Christmas parcels backlogs at Yodel, althoughYodel itself said that these issues had been exaggerated. Jonathan Smith, Yodel’s chief executive,was reported saying that demand had been 20% greater than forecast in some areas of the country,including parts of the south-east, the north-west and Leeds. “This appears to have been a verystrong online Christmas, and I don’t think anyone would have put their money on that in thesummer,” Smith told the Financial Times.
Starkey acknowledged that there had been some regional difficulties reported at Yodel. But hesaid that in many cases, complaints about e-deliveries came from customers who had ordered homedeliveries but were not there to receive them. “One of the messages that we want to push is thatthere are many different delivery options that retailers are offering – for example, gettingdeliveries made to collection points or to their work address, or using delivery options that havea one-hour delivery window,” he added. “So, there are a number of things that people can do tominimise the risk of failed deliveries, but most people just tick the box for a free delivery withRoyal Mail.”
IMRG noted that multichannel retailers accounted for the majority of visits during December, inparticular on Boxing Day when there were almost twice as many visits to multichannel brands thanthere were to ‘pureplay online retailers’. “However, the figures also reveal the gap between thesetwo groups of retailers has narrowed considerably, with online-only retailers making inroads intothe dominance of multichannel retailers during the festive season,” IMRG added.
James Murray, marketing research analyst at Experian Hitwise, said that Boxing Day wastraditionally the biggest retail day of the year in the UK, but this year it had been “massive”. Hesaid a lot of this was due to “smart multi-channel marketing by the big retailers using TV, radioand the web to drive transaction volumes”, adding: “The convenience of the web, combined withmassive discounts, free postage and packing and next-day delivery is incredibly tempting for peoplethat want to avoid the hurly burly of high street sales.”
Murray said ‘gadgets’ were among the most searched-for products on Boxing Day, with the AmazonKindle and Apple iPad 2 coming top of the list. Apple had three products within the top 10 BoxingDay list, including the iPad 2, iPod Touch and iPhone 4S, with iPad 2 cases also theeighth-most-searched-for item on Boxing Day.
