The Delivery Conference, organised by MetaPack and held yesterday in London, saw a number of new innovations and services launched by retailers and their delivery partners alike as the two work harder than ever to improve the delivery experience for customers.
We will bring you a fuller round-up of the trends and stories later in the week but as a teaser next day delivery is becoming the norm, returns have to become an opportunity and customer experience is more important than ever.
The trend for next day is further evidenced by the latest IMRG and MetaPack UK Delivery Index figures that show that next day was selected for 31% of online orders in 2016, compared to 26.8% the year before.
There were some exciting initiatives announced at the show. DPD announced the continued rollout of its DPD Precise service as well as the launch of DPD Precise Deluxe, a new service that will allow customers to choose their delivery slot of choice at the point of purchase. The company is also improving communications through its apps too.
Customers are after greater control than ever and it’s perhaps not surprising that thanks to innovations such as these DPD was also top of a customer satisfaction poll run by Moneysavingexpert.com this week.
Hermes also had exciting news to share as CEO Carole Woodhead announced that the company had become the first to enable parcel tracking through Amazon Alexa, allowing customers to track their parcels simply by asking the voice activated speakers.
Whilst The Delivery Conference may be over eDelivery has its own event coming up with the eDelivery Expo happening on April 4 and 5 at Birmingham’s NEC. We will be introducing you to a number of the speakers over the coming weeks with interviews with them for the eDelivery.net site. We kick the series off with a look at how to manage global expansion as an SME, with an interview with Nick Fox, COO of The Snugg. It’s a great insight into how you must ensure you are ready for the international challenges of expansion and delivery overseas.
In our opinion piece this week we hear from George Berzgal, vice president for Europe, global ecommerce at Pitney Bowes. He talks about how luxury retailers really must put fulfilment in their sights. For a sector that ignored ecommerce itself for so long he says the opportunities to thrill with delivery are not to be ignored.
And finally this week we hear about how home goods manufacturer and designer simplehuman is using a cloud-based WMS from Snapfulfil, after taking management of its warehouse in-house.
Don’t forget there will be more to come on The Delivery Conference this week. Where you there? What did you think of the latest trends discussed and the innovations announced? What would you like to see happening in the market? Don’t forget to share your views below or email me on liz@edelivery.net.
We will also be bringing you more on the eDelivery Expo in the coming weeks too. To learn more about the show and register for free visit www.edeliveryexpo.com
