'One in three home delivery customers is out'

Nearly half the fleet managers interviewed for this year’s Lex Transfleet Report on Freight Transport (46 per cent) think home shopping will increase the number of small trucks and vans on the road. The report says this confirms findings that eight out of ten motorists who buy over the Internet expect to use this medium even more in future. Encouragingly, 91 per cent found that goods were generally delivered on time.

However, drivers doing the home deliveries say that in nearly a third of cases (28 per cent), they find nobody at home to receive the goods. This was their second-biggest complaint, rating 6.9 out of 10; top was the difficulty of finding somewhere to park (7 out of 10). They were also worried about longer working hours, increased traffic congestion and greater risk of accidents. They may be right about hours; 34 per cent of motorists preferred home deliveries to be made between 6pm and 8pm.

However, 28 per cent of fleet managers report that home shopping has not had the kind of impact on their business that they expected, and only 13 per cent report any resultant increase in freight volume over the past two years. And the report says only 10 per cent of truck drivers and 22 per cent of van drivers actually make home deliveries at the moment.

The report is based on interviews last year by Swift Research with 200 fleet managers and 299 truck and van drivers, and by Sample Surveys with 1,378 motorists.