Secured Mail offering “delivery back up” for Black Friday
As retailers prepare for this year’s Black Friday (27th November), which is predicted to be the UK’s first £1bn online shopping day, Secured Mail has announced that it is offering a ‘disaster recovery’ contingency to help online retailers whose delivery channels fail to cope with increased delivery demand. In a statement sent to Post&Parcel today (22 October) Secured Mail said: “Black Friday 2014 was bigger than the industry anticipated and as a result some retailers were left unprepared with lost orders and delayed deliveries. This year is set to see four times the number of UK online shoppers, which means that retailers must make sure they get the logistics right.”
Mark Bigley, the Chief Executive at Secured Mail, commented: “Black Friday is a huge sales opportunity for online retailers but increased demand often puts a strain on logistics. Retailers only have one chance to get it right – customers won’t forgive a second fail.
“Our aim is to help retailers cope with the sales surge as efficiently as possible and avoid many of the logistical issues experienced around Black Friday 2014. We believe that it is vital for retailers to monitor and identify any issues before they impact on the consumer.
“We can step in to sort out last-minute logistical issues real-time during Black Friday, all is not lost as we have the capacity, technology and expertise to achieve instant recovery.”
The “capacity, technology and expertise” to which Bigley refers are concentrated in Secure Mail’s automated hubs in Warrington and Luton, which give the company the ability to handle 10 million items of post every day.
Secured Mail also offered its list of “top tips” for online retailers to consider when it comes to choosing the right delivery partner this Black Friday:
- Choose a delivery partner who values your customers as much as you do
- Customers need to know how their order is progressing; keep them updated
- Work together with your delivery partner to plan for increased volume of orders
- Monitor and detect logistical issues before they have any impact on the customer
- Prepare a contingency plan for deliveries and put it into action before the crisis point hits.
