The Black Friday deliveries are still arriving at customers’ doors but the event itself is now done and dusted – which means now that all that remains is the race for Christmas.
Two new surveys from Shutl this week reveal just how big the pressure on delivery this Christmas is this year in particular.
The first is yet another survey that shows how loyalty is lost if retailers get delivery wrong. It’s obviously never good to get it wrong at any point in the year but at Christmas it does even more harm if a retailer’s delivery options simply aren’t up to scratch. The survey showed a whopping 95% would go elsewhere if a retailer didn’t have delivery options that suited them.
The frustration of missing a delivery is tough but at Christmas it can be enough to send the mildest mannered shopper over the edge when quite frankly even if we love a bit of retail therapy we just want the shopping part done and dusted. The second survey shows the extremes that customers will go to with nearly one in four saying that they would leave their house unsecured to ensure a delivery, whilst more than a third would give their keys to someone they didn’t know very well to enable them to take in a delivery for them.
Of course one option to avoid the above happening is to click and collect. A new survey from Verdict Retail suggests the delivery method will continue to grow over the next five years with click and collect expected to increase by 64% on today’s figures by 2021. But it also suggests that other delivery models, such as subscription-based delivery options, will increasingly take a lion’s share too especially since they better tie in a customer to a retailer.
Returning to returns
Continuing our focus on returns this week is an opinion piece from Eiratech Robotics which looks at how robotics can help to resolve the returns problem – something that many retailers will be looking to tackle over the coming weeks.
International Amazon sellers meanwhile have been warned to get their act together on returns after a new policy change by the retail giant. Sellers have been told they must now offer a returns solution or else provide a refund to unhappy customers without requesting a return.
Company expansion
Also in the news this week is the expansion of two different providers. In an exclusive interview with FedEx Express we find out what their new Polish station means for UK retailers and we find out how CML Logistics has created 100 new jobs with a new warehouse to help handle peak load this Christmas.
For those logistics companies looking to more cost effective and reduce carbon emissions comes the news that a new biomethane fuel launch, already used by the likes of John Lewis and Argos is up to 35-40% cheaper than diesel.
Don’t forget you could win an iPhone 7!
If you haven’t taken our delivery expectations survey yet then don’t forget you can win an iPhone 7 for doing so. Retailers who complete the survey, which will form the basis for our upcoming whitepaper with NetDespatch, will be entered into a draw to win the phone as well as helping us to better understand how retailers are responding to customer edelivery expectations.
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