Shippit: almost 20% of Cyber Weekend deliveries in Australia arrived late
One in five online orders placed over the period were not delivered on time according to internal data released by retail logistics SaaS startup Shippit.
Rob Hango-Zada, Joint-CEO of Shippit, said: “Future growth in online retail is dependent on more reliable delivery experiences for shoppers. Australia’s largest retailers have invested significantly in ensuring they can dispatch orders faster than ever with many offering same day dispatch even during peak. On the other hand, there has been a consistent trend of carriers facing overwhelming demand, which hasn’t been met with the capacity to deliver on time to the end customer”.
Orders placed during the Black Friday Cyber Monday period accounted for 3.5% of annual online orders, up from 2.1% in 2018.
Demonstrating the sheer scale of such an important event in the annual retail calendar, making it even more critical for logistics providers to get right.
Whilst almost 20% of all deliveries arrived late, Shippit found that results were even worse for express delivery, with one logistics provider delivering only 64% of their parcels in full and on time—a major red flag for retailers who rely heavily on estimated delivery timelines to close sales with prospective customers.
Shippit says the drop in carrier performance has a serious impact on the customer experience when it comes to online shopping. As delivery plays a major role in the online purchasing experience, the number of support enquiries related to delayed deliveries more than doubled following the weekend. This causes greater concern for online retailers as more and more brick and mortar retailers have begun to embrace the Black Friday Cyber Monday sales season, further increasing competitive pressure for the online sector.
Delivery propositions are increasing in popularity with guarantees like Amazon Prime, and eBay plus for example which have a significant focus on catering to shopper demands. So much so that Amazon built its own logistics network to overcome the customer experience issues they faced with existing carriers in the US.
