It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, we all know the only thing that matters in the etail game is keeping your promise.
The customer chooses, buys, and parts with their hard-earned, all in return for a promise. When buying online felt a little like risking swapping your cow for five magic beans, trust in a retailer’s provenance was key. These days it’s a much simpler* affair … can I get my purchased goods when and where I want them?
It should surprise no one that it remains such an important consideration in the multichannel retail space; not just here in the UK, but elsewhere in Europe too.
In fact, according to the JDA/Centiro Customer Pulse report, around 70% shoppers in Germany, Sweden and the UK will walk away from a retailer if they have a poor delivery experience, with late delivery in particular being singled out by almost half as one of the biggest problems they have.
Younger shoppers – the infamous Millennials / Generation Z – are especially likely to vote with their feet, or is it their fingers, according to Shutl. Shoppers aged 18-24 are twice as likely to expect better from etail delivery than those aged 45-54, Shutl’s research says.
There’s even an infographic to accompany it, which you can view here.
But if being patient is one of your strong suits, you’re the kind of shopper Poundland and Hermes have in their joint sights, as the latter prepares to provide delivery services for the discount retailer.
We’re now just over a month away from the first ever eDelivery Conference (EDC2015 – 13 October), and we’ve got an interview with Dave Crellin, head of online operations development at Sainsbury’s, who will be speaking on the topic of balancing customer demands with speed, convenience and flexibility.
We’ve also recently announced a special invitation for smaller, startup businesses to get involved. If that sounds like you, or someone you know, please get in touch.
Tickets are still available for EDC2015 and I’m hoping to personally meet and chat to as many eDelivery readers as I possibly can. If that hasn’t put you off attending, you can find an overview of some of the speakers and themes you can look forward to here. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be publishing interviews with some of them and we very much hope to see you there.
And if you haven’t subscribed to eDelivery yet why not..? You’ll get our weekly newsletter summarising the main stories we’ve covered, and we’ll keep you informed of other big announcements, but we won’t spam you – no one’s liked spam since the 1940s. You’ll find details on subscribing here.
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* – simple … if only.
(Header image – © European Union 2015)
