Many UK SMEs are ‘underprepared’ for the expected surge in e-commerce sales on Black Friday (27 November) and are not applying lessons from last year, Royal Mail has warned.
Royal Mail research, conducted in August, found that 60% of consumers are already preparing to shop online for this year’s event.
But many of the UK’s 4.9 million SMEs are not fully ready to capitalise on the Black Friday opportunity, according to a survey of 250 small business owners. While 95% are making preparations of some form, SMEs are not applying all the lessons learnt from last year’s event.
In 2014, the biggest challenges faced by SMEs around Black Friday were: coping with increased website traffic (48%); managing stock (44%); delivering their orders on time or quickly enough (33%) and distributing orders from their warehouse (31%), the survey found.
While small business owners are preparing for influx of web visitors (39% are arranging extra IT capacity), bringing in more staff to prepare orders (40% are employing additional staff) and improving the availability of products (with 55% ordering more stock), nearly two thirds are not preparing for the delivery of customer orders.
Only 38% of SMEs have extended their ‘delivery window’ to allow more time to get deliveries to consumers and just 36% are working with their delivery provider to forecast volumes. This means that up to 1.76 million UK SMEs run the risk of not being able to meet their delivery promises and may undermine customer satisfaction on Black Friday, the UK’s largest delivery company warned.
For this week’s Small Business Advice Week, Royal Mail is advising small and medium-sized business to work with their delivery provider to forecast volumes for Black Friday and the Christmas shopping period. Royal Mail considers Black Friday as part of its Christmas delivery period and has been planning its logistics and staffing since early 2015. Royal Mail’s preparations include the creation of dedicated parcel sorting centres and the recruitment of thousands of additional staff for the peak period.
Roger Morris, Head of Royal Mail Parcels, said: “Black Friday has established itself in the UK shopping calendar and now marks the start of the Christmas retail season. SMEs are joining the big brands to claim their share of the retail spend, but our research shows that they may be risking their reputation by not preparing in all areas of their business.”
He continued: “Just like our customers we are getting ready for the shopping season by bringing in more staff and adding more capacity. Our advice for SMEs this week is don’t forget an important part of the puzzle: planning your delivery. Working with a trusted delivery provider will give small businesses the reassurance that their Black Friday orders will get there on time, every time.”
