A new survey from Citizens Advice suggests that for shoppers whose delivery arrives late, broken or doesn’t turn up at all they can spend up to two and a half hours sorting out the problem.
The report claims that in 2015/16 consumers experienced 4.8 million delivery problems – spending 11.8 million hours trying to sort them out.
The cost was also significant at £148 million, or an average of £30 per parcel due to the damage or loss of goods, hours wasted and time spent away from work.
Whilst the delivery sector is doing all it can to improve deliveries Citizens Advice says it saw a 32% increase in calls from people seeking help for problems with deliveries between October and December 2015 with a 60% spike for people getting online help on 18 December.
It’s predicted up to 390 million parcels will be handled in the UK in November and December this year.
Niklas Hedin, CEO of Centiro, said that retailers must work closely with their delivery partner. “Depending on the way it is approached, the Christmas period can provide a real boost or a real burden to retailers. Some will be left with healthy profits as the orders roll in, while others will struggle to meet the demands customers are making of them. To get it right, it is essential that retailers get their house in order early when it comes to deliveries and returns,” he said.
“Recent YouGov research showed that the majority (60%) of UK shoppers would ultimately hold a retailer, rather than a carrier, responsible for order problems, so retailers must take action to seize control of their delivery experience. By reclaiming more of the responsibility from carriers, they can own the last mile customer experience,” he said.
Main difficulties faced by consumers:
- Difficulty getting through to the parcel company to find out where their parcel is
- Not knowing who is responsible for sorting out the problem
- Unexpected handling fees when receiving a parcel from outside EU
- Confusion about getting compensation when parcels are lost or damaged
(Source: Citizens Advice analysis of 2,000 calls it received in the last 12 months)
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