Mind the gap!
A new report from Sorted has highlighted a growing gap between consumers’ expectations of the delivery experience and what retailers are prepared to offer.
In a statement sent to Post&Parcel today (14 May) about its “Delivery Battleground Report”, Sorted that the ‘delivery experience gap’, centred around flexibility – or lack thereof – in fulfilment.
Sorted explained: “70% of consumers want retailers to provide more flexible fulfilment options and almost half (46%) agreed that convenience and personalisation were key factors in online fulfilment, expecting retailers to offer delivery options that are built to fit in around their lifestyles to best meet their needs.
“However, only 18% of retailers have the capabilities to allow shoppers to alter an order right up until the moment of dispatch, and just 4% could offer changes in the delivery requirements at any time after the customer had placed an order.”
Sorted said that retailers who could not offer flexibility in fulfilment were losing sales opportunities – and also racking up more costs in returns: “With lack of convenience accounting for a quarter of failed deliveries, due to shoppers not being able to change an order or delivery options once an item has been shipped, inflexibility in fulfilment is also impacting returns; failed online deliveries cost retailers an estimated £2.29m in returned goods on average each month, according to Sorted’s latest data.”
David Grimes, founder and CEO at Sorted, commented: “When it comes to delivering positive fulfilment experience, built around the needs of the shopper, the true solution is less about prioritising shiny new novelties and more about relationship building – creating closer collaboration between the retailer, the carrier and the customer.
“Ultimately, all three parties want the same thing: to get the product to the customer as quickly, easily and cost-effectively as possible. Yet all too often, delivery is a series of disjointed processes, with so many points of failure and risk that it does not create value for any of these three parties.”
