British parcels carrier Yodel has defended its performance in this year’s Christmas peak season,stressing that it successfully delivered a record 20 million parcels in the four weeks leading up
to Christmas.The UK’s largest independent parcel delivery firm has been criticised in the national media bysome customers for the number of its shipments that failed to reach recipients in time, and foralleged unsatisfactory responses to customers enquiring about their parcels – including criticismin one UK newspaper from online retail giant Amazon.
But a spokesman for Yodel told CEP-Research that the company had successfully completed 99.9% ofdeliveries by the end of Christmas Eve, adding: “The parcels left in the network at close of playon Christmas Eve were undeliverable due to circumstances outside our control – for example nobodyavailable to accept or sign for delivery.”
He said that the record 20 million parcels shipped was a significant increase from both the 14.5million parcels in 2009 and the 12.8 million parcels delivered the same period in 2010, althoughthe delivery volumes in 2010 had been impacted by the adverse weather in the lead-up to Christmas.But parcel volumes this peak season had been 20% higher than anticipated.
CEO Jonathan Smith said: “These impressive figures demonstrate the massive surge in onlineshopping in 2011. In what is a difficult economic environment, I am delighted that we have beenable to work closely with retailers and consumers to ensure that over 20 million parcels have beendelivered in December.” He said the company would continue to work with clients and partners toensure that it innovates its services further in 2012.
Andrew Starkey, logistics director for UK e-retail association IMRG, yesterday told CEP-Researchthat delivery companies had generally managed to keep up with demand in the run-up to Christmas,despite further increases in demand, and had performed far better than during the same period in2010, which was badly affected by snow.
He said carriers had been much better prepared than in previous years, as a result of seriousinvestments that they have made, in preparation for this year’s peak, although some regionalproblems were inevitable, due to weather or operational issues. He also acknowledged thatcomplaints about e-deliveries often came from customers who had ordered home deliveries but werenot there to receive them, and stressed that there were many different delivery options thatretailers and their delivery providers offered to help minimise the risk of failed deliveries.
