Exel and E-commerce
A service to help retailers, e-tail-ers and manufacturers open up new distribution channels by pro-viding the often-missing piece of the e-commerce equation: timely and cost-efficient fulfilment and home delivery has been launched by Exel.
Exel Direct, the company’s business-to-consumer fulfilment and home delivery service, is ini-tially being launched in the US, but the service will roll out in the UK and continental Europe during 2000, building on the operational experience of Exel’s existing home delivery contracts.
Although newly named, Exel Direct boasts 30 years and 50 million deliveries as the former Merchants Home Delivery Service, which began operating in North America in 1970 and has been part of the Exel family since 1984. Exel Direct has established technology resources, shipping networks and cross-docks. In North America, the company has
more than 1500 delivery teams serving 240 operating sites in all 50 states and two Canadian provinces.
The first in a number of ser-vices Exel Direct will offer in the United States is the fulfilment and home delivery of items too large to be shipped through traditional carriers such as FedEx or UPS, such as furniture and appliances. In addition to fulfilment and the home delivery, Exel Direct’s ser-vices include installation, set-up and removal of old merchandise.
Services are offered on dedi-cated or network basis, depend-ing on volume. delivery area, and other needs. On a network basis, Exel Direct provides fulfil-ment, home delivery and trans-portation management services for several large national retailers, e-tailers and manufacturers.
“We are helping our customers open up new distribution chan-nels — such as Web, catalogue, and phone — by being a single
source for getting their large-size and big-ticket products to cus-tomers with the level of speed, care and convenience customers expect,” said Bruce Edwards, Exel executive vice president.
In the United Kingdom, Exel has been a providing home deliv-ery service for Argos since the retailer launched its home deliv-ery service in 1990. The opera-tion, which started with just six products, expanded to more than 1,000 products and 23,000 deliv-eries per week in 1999,
Exel also provides home deliv-ery services for Marks & Spencer, supporting in-store kiosks in 22 M&S stores, using vehicles designed for food delivery.
Speaking about the e-com-merce effect on retail, Perry Watts, development director for Exel Retail said it would provide “a significant complementary channel,., more people will want to buy and sell using this method.”
