Trends in online retail delivery and returns
Sarah Clelland, Marketing Manager, Snow Valley
A
few years ago I was talking to an ecommerce manager at a high-end women’s fashion chain. The Insight team at Snow Valley had just published our
latest piece of research, the Online Returns & Refunds Report, and I mentioned that her company was one of the few that had insisted on sending a carrier to pick up the unwanted item when we put them to the test.
She explained that this was because her products were very expensive and her customers had high expectations. Sending a carrier at an agreed time kept the customer happy and made sure the goods arrived back at the warehouse safely. She was genuinely surprised when I told her that 99 percent of the returns we had made by post reached the destination without any problem.
To cut a long story short, she decided to introduce an option to return by post as well as by carrier. To her amazement, within a few weeks 40 percent of customers making a return were using the Post Office rather than wait for a carrier pick- up. Her customers clearly preferred having an extra option and it drastically cut her returns costs. Win-win.
This story illustrates why Snow Valley created an Insight team whose mission in life is to carry out research and produce reports such as the Online Retail Delivery Report and the Online Returns & Refunds Report. As a provider of ecommerce technology and services, we know that retailers are constantly looking for ways to improve sales, customer value, and operational efficiency. Our reports provide statistics and anecdotal evidence to provide inspiration and, importantly, evidence for what might work for them.
Thanks to sponsorship from our friends at MetaPack, the reports are free of charge. Visit our website and download your copies – you’ll find plenty of ideas for improvement.
To whet your appetite, I thought I’d provide a summary of what we learned from our 2011 reports:
It’s all in the delivery For our 2011 Online Retail Delivery Report, we placed orders on 229 UK retail websites. We looked at how many delivery
52
services they offered, how fast the service was, the quality of communication – everything. Our key findings this year:
1. Offer a flexible range of delivery options – 69 percent of retailers now offer at least two delivery options, up from 54 percent in 2005. This is good to see. However, although 60 percent could offer next-day, only 17 percent offered delivery on a nominated day and only 12 percent at a nominated time of day. Interestingly, 9 retailers offered same-day delivery this year and several are trying the Shutl service, which delivers to certain postcodes within 90 minutes. Retailers need to continually review their delivery propositions to make sure they are competitive and attractive to your shoppers.
2. Deadlines are getting later – over the past 12 months, Next moved its cut-off point for next-day delivery to a very impressive 9pm. It now runs adverts during Coronation Street informing viewers that they still have an hour to place an order and get the goods the next day. It’s true that Next is in a minority and there are still many retailers with a deadline of 12.30 pm. However, later deadlines are a trend that we expect to see evolve over the next few years.
3. Flexible delivery destinations – billing-address only delivery is continuing to die out, as only 11 retailers insisted on this. But what’s interesting is the arrival of other delivery destinations – 49 retailers offered delivery to store this year and Littlewoods and other retailers are also offering the Collect+ service, which drops off at local corner shops. This is another area worth watching.
The point of no returns Snow Valley’s second major report of the year was the 2011 Online Returns & Refunds Report, again sponsored by MetaPack. This report focuses on how retailers have set up their returns policies and procedures. Our top three findings this year:
1. More retailers are refunding the delivery charge. For years this has remained static: only 17 percent of retailers refunded the cost of the item AND the original delivery charge. But this year it had jumped up to 30 percent. This may be due to some negative publicity that Next
ecmod DIRECT COMMERCE YEAR BOOK 2011
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72