Last month we ran a number of pieces on the theme of home delivery and the growing headache of the final mile.
For a lot of people – and you might be one of them – home delivery has never been an ideal solution; if you’re out at work every day, for example, you’ve probably had things shipped to your office address instead.
Solving the problem of the final mile by moving the final mile somewhere else. Genius idea!
Until now, that is.
A growing number of employers are no longer permitting staff to have personal items delivered to them at work, because the influx of online shopping has pushed office post rooms to breaking point.
The iconic One Canada Square skyscraper in Canary Wharf receives around 11,000 deliveries a month, and around one third of them are personal items – all of which have to logged and run through security checks before making their way to the recipients’ desks.
Among those either banning staff from using work as a delivery drop-off, or asking them not to, are American Express, Citigroup, the Department for Transport, DVLA, the Department for Work & Pensions, HSBC, and JP Morgan.
Last year, Irish delivery company Nightline published its own research into this thorny issue which found 44% of Irish consumers regularly had shopping delivered to them at work, with some businesses estimating that personal deliveries were accounting for as much as 80% of post room activity during November and December.
No wonder then that Doddle is opening up a store in Canary Wharf, as reported in eDelivery 5 August.
Shifting your final mile to the address where you work, then, isn’t going to fix things.
Smarter solutions are required. Inspiration for such solutions could be closer than you think. According to John Boulter of DHL fashion retailers in particular could learn a trick or two from the way supermarkets deliver food.
Wider economic indicators point to increasing growth, which while hugely beneficial will necessitate getting to grips with keeping costs down, making delivery less of a cost-burden, and so on. For example, investment in retail warehousing leapt almost one third in the first half of the year, according to DTZ.
Registration is still open for our first ever eDelivery Conference, which takes place on 13 October. This week we have published an overview of some of the speakers and themes you can look forward to – we very much hope to see you there.
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