UK retailers and parcel carriers now offer more delivery options with greater flexibility and atmore competitive prices than last year, according to the 2011 Online Retail Delivery Report
published by Snow Valley, UK’s leading provider of e-commerce technology and services.The report, sponsored by delivery management provider MetaPack, tested over 200 retailers byplacing a live order on each site and evaluating over 40 aspects of the retailer’s serviceincluding speed, customer service, flexibility, and charges.
Leading UK retailer John Lewis emerged as the winner from the evaluation and was honoured forits outstanding service at Snow Valley’s Golden Chariot awards that took place in London last week.Demonstrating overall delivery excellence, John Lewis scored highly across every aspect of theirdelivery service, Snow Valley reported.
“Swift fulfilment was combined with fast, accurate responses to all the customer serviceenquiries that Snow Valley made by e-mail, telephone, and Twitter. Flexibility was also superb:orders can be placed as late as 7pm for next-day or in-store delivery and customers can choose fromfour home delivery options, including nominated day and delivery by 10.30.”
Four other UK retailers picked up Silver Chariot awards. Fashion retailer ASOS was honoured inthe category ‘Best International Delivery’ offering a standard and a premium delivery service tocustomers living overseas with websites specifically tailored to French, German and Americanshoppers. TopShop was honoured for Best Cross-Channel Service with researchers highlighting itsconsistency of service between stores, call centre, and web. Kiddicare, the Best Customer Serviceaward-winner, now enables customers to reschedule delivery for another day. Jo Malone, which offersan exclusive lifestyle collection, was awarded for Best Brand Experience.
Among the main findings, this year’s Online Retail Delivery Report revealed that almost 70% ofUK retailers now offer at least two delivery options, usually standard and next day, and as many as60% now offer a next-day delivery service. Furthermore, 17% of retailers can deliver on a nominateddate and 12% at a nominated time of day. Same-day delivery, most in the London area, is gettingmore popular, with 9% of retailers now offering such as service. The average standard deliverycharge was £4.17.
Less positively, however, 42% of UK retailers still deliver only to UK addressees and offer nooverseas delivery at all.
In terms of customer service, 77% of retailers allowed the customer to track their order onlineand 81% of the retailers delivered successfully within their promised timescales. But only 4% senta text message alert regarding the delivery and 16% of the retailers failed to respond to an e-mailquery about delivery. Cross-channel is also growing, and 19% of the retailers supported ‘collectfrom store’, up from 15% last year.
Carlo Rimini, CEO Snow Valley, said: “This year’s Online Retail Delivery Report shows trueprogress in nearly every aspect of home delivery – the fact that nearly 70% of retailers can nowoffer a choice of delivery options, up from 54% in 2005, shows that customers are getting theflexibility that they want. And we’re getting faster: 10% of orders arrived next-working day on astandard service, which is fantastic. It’s also pleasing to see so much innovation – same-daydelivery, text messaging, and being able to collect from a store or a corner shop are just a fewexamples.”
Patrick Wall, CEO of MetaPack, commented: “The next stage in the evolution for retail deliveryis to move customer care from reactive to pro-active. The move towards greater visibility andinstant communication between carrier and retailer is the key and will provide more customerupdates, more reassurance and ultimately happier customers.”
In addition to the Online Retail Delivery Report focusing on UK, Snow Valley published theInternational Delivery Report 2010, which was sponsored by Royal Mail. This report highlighted sixcountries with English as their main language as an international market opportunity without alanguage barrier.
The research found a mixed level of international e-commerce offerings, indicating a lesserfocus on international markets among many online retailers. The report highlighted some areas thatthe UK consumer takes for granted, but which are not always offered to international customers andrecommended simple ways to improve customer experience and break down international barriers.
Royal Mail commented: “International e-commerce is one of the fastest growing areas of RoyalMail’s fulfilment business. It reflects a growth opportunity available to many UK businesses thatso far only a few have grasped. Many e-tailers focus solely on the UK market. But those who tradeoverseas can see great rewards.”
