Shoppers in the UK are being offered the chance to personalise e-commerce deliveries in aneffort to reduce the proportion of consumers who ditch possible purchases at the online
checkout.British parcel and carrier manager, Global Freight Solutions (GFS), claims its newcarrier-neutral system “GFS Checkout” will overcome one of the key concerns voicedby people buying online by giving them even greater choice in how and when they receiveitems while also dramatically improving the prospects of purchases being delivered first time.
One recent piece of research suggested that more than two-thirds of consumers did notcomplete intended transactions while another study estimated that delivery costs were thecause of over half of all shopping cart abandonment, the company pointed out.
Managing director Neil Cotty explained that GFS Checkout could be tailored to suitthose delivery options which individual retailers wanted to present customers with. Thesoftware is being offered to retailers of every size as a free ‘plug-in’ so they do not have toredesign their websites and to eliminate the high cost and long lead times that havepreviously been a barrier to integration of individual suppliers into the checkout.
“We are convinced that what we have created genuinely offers a broad range of retailersthe facility to tackle the issue of sales lost late in the online transaction process andincreases the choice of delivery options available to consumers,” Cotty said. “GFSCheckout enables shoppers to make an informed decision by setting out a menu ofoptions and prices which is easy to understand and letting them choose which oneis right for them – even down to the time of delivery.
“What we have been able to create is a free, carrier-agnostic package which haseverything in one place for retailers of all sizes, including delivery options and rulesmanagement. Simply by giving customers the power to choose the date of their delivery helpsimprove the prospect of getting purchases to the people at the first time of asking.This is good for the retailer, the carrier and the consumer.”
According to GFS, retailers wanting to offer a choice of delivery options have often had tostruggle with the complexities of incorporating different providers and services into theire-commerce sites and presenting these choices clearly to consumers.
Cotty stressed that GFS Checkout would not be limited to retailers either based in orshipping to customers in the UK but would support all the major delivery firms globally.
“Many carriers now offer a large range of services, not just the typical next day ordeferred services most consumers are aware of. Carriers are now offering Saturday and evenSunday delivery services, and of course have always offered premium services, suchas pre-10 o’clock and pre-midday delivery. Typically, it has been difficult foronline retailers to offer these premium services in the checkout as no option isgiven and the services are not available to all postcodes,” he added.
“GFS Checkout opens up this vast array of carrier services to the home user and in manycases will simplify the dispatch profile of retailers who can get all of their requiredservices from a single supplier. It also creates the opportunity for the retailer to improvetheir brand perception and cater to consumers with specific requirements.
“In addition, Click & Collect and drop point providers are growing at a massiverate and GFS Checkout supports the major vendors in the UK providing unique access toover 12,000 locations throughout the UK.”
Cotty stated that GFS Checkout was not tied to any of its other products and wasdesigned to be open source in nature supporting multiple e-commerce platforms, such asMagento, without significant development resource being required to implement it.
