by johnt
26. July 2011 13:43
The British spent £31.5bn online in the first half of this year but they have one major gripe, delivery times. British shoppers waste an average of five days a year waiting at home for the delivery of products bought via the internet, while nearly one in five will spend two weeks hoping for deliveries to arrive, according to a survey of 3,000 internet users.
Some companies have managed to crack this, particularly where they have their own delivery fleet, online grocery companies routinely offer their customers the chance to specify their preferred delivery slots. However for larger items such as electrical goods and furniture this practice is less common, where at best customers are offered a four to five hour delivery slot.
It has been suggested, that part of the 30.4m (source: CBI) working days lost last year to ‘sickies’ , may be down to internet shoppers waiting for home deliveries.
To survive, companies will have to use more technology to trace packages and automatically contact customers to make them aware of the delivery time and any changes.
If they are to thrive, they will also need to conduct regular data cleansing to ensure their base delivery data is correct.