Following a share holders meeting, called by the APC share holding depots. the entire board were required to resign and then stand again for re-election.
Three members of the old board, including Quentin Abel (MD) where re-elected. Nick Taylor and Vince Friery were not,and are replaced by Sid Zillah, and Jon Barber.
Read MoreUPS and FedEx have expanded their air freight services, predominantly in Asia. Rival DHL, meanwhile, is facing calls for a retreat from the US.
FedEx is out to get a larger share of the intra-Asian air freight market. On January 10, the integrator launched an economy door-to-door service for shipments between 10 markets in the region as well as for exports from these areas to North America and Europe.
The new “International Economy” offering is a day-definite product with transit times that are typically one or two days longer than the FedEx’s premium service. On intra-Asian legs, this means usually two business days, whereas shipments to the US or major European centres take three to four business days on average.
At this point, the service is available in Australia, mainland China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand. In March, FedEx plans to extend it to Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Small to medium-sized companies are the main target group of the new offering. According to the integrator, the product addresses the needs of customers in Asia who look primarily for reliability and cost efficiency.
Individual packages must weigh 68 kilos or less, but there are no weight restrictions on multi-piece shipments. The service includes Customs clearance and a money-back guarantee.
UPS has overhauled its international air freight portfolio, with the emphasis on markets outside its US home turf. The new line-up, which features three products, is a move to integrate the company’s air freight services into a single portfolio along the lines of its express parcel set-up.
Rival DHL is facing a bigger challenge to get its house in order, according to major Wall Street firms. Over the past couple of months, Bear Stearns and Morgan Stanley both released studies that characterised the express outfit’s foray into the US market as a loss-making disaster with no black figures in sight.
Read MoreMore than 85 percent of the world’s online population has used the Internet to make a purchase — increasing the market for online shopping by 40 percent in the past two years — according to the latest Nielsen Global Online Survey on Internet shopping habits. Globally, more than half of Internet users have made at least one purchase online in the past month, according to Nielsen.
Among Internet users, the highest percentage shopping online is found in South Korea, where 99 percent of those with Internet access have used it to shop, followed by the UK (97pct), Germany (97pct), Japan (97pct) with the U.S. eighth, at 94 percent. Additionally, in South Korea, 79 percent of these Internet users have shopped in the past month, followed by the UK (76pct) and Switzerland (67pct) with the U.S. at 57 percent.
Globally, the most popular and purchased items over the Internet are Books (41pct purchased in the past three months), Clothing/Accessories/Shoes (36pct), Videos / DVDs / Games (24pct), Airline Tickets (24pct) and Electronic Equipment (23pct).
Credit cards are by far the most common method of payment for online purchases — 60 percent of global online consumers used their credit card for a recent online purchase, while one in four online consumers chose PayPal. Of those paying with a credit card, more than half (53pct) used Visa.
According to Nielsen, online shoppers tend to stick to the shopping sites they are familiar with, with 60 percent saying they buy mostly from the same site. “This shows the importance of capturing the tens of millions of new online shoppers as they make their first purchases on the Internet. If shopping sites can capture them early, and create a positive shopping experience, they will likely capture their loyalty and their money,” said Paul.
In-depth insight into the UK mail order market including detailed profiles of 10 of the leading mail order operators. The report studies market trends, including growth and value in the agency, direct and door-to-door markets and highlights the issues facing mail order retailers with responses necessary for specialists to compete in this challenging sector.
Ten years’ data on market value and growth rates in the overall market, plus five year trends in market segments agency, direct and door-to-door. Market shares of 10 major operators five years’ historical data to 2007, including shares of separate market segments. Key operating statistics for each retailer, including trading record, operating margins and analysis of retail proposition and catalogue portfolio.
In 2007 the GBP 9.9bn mail order market enjoyed its strongest growth for nine years at 6.2pct, reversing four years of decline. This has been driven primarily by direct and niche operators who are targeting specific customer groups effectively, and from new business developments, with the Tesco Direct catalogue the most significant.
The traditional Big Three operators underperformed, losing 1.8 percentage points year-on-year and continued to be unprofitable. Their participation in the agency sector was a factor agency business declined a further 6.1pct in 2007 to GBP 1.4bn, suppressing overall growth and dragging down any gains made in the direct sector (which grew by 10.8pct).
Online has become the most important channel of distribution for mail order retailers, producing GBP 4bn of sales. Online ordering generated nearly 41.0pct of all sales in the GBP 9.9bn market in 2007. The result is that mail order operators have doubled their share of total online expenditure over the past five years, from 19.5pct in 2002 to 38.1pct in 2007.
Identify trends and opportunities in the market using the 10 year historical market data, plus the channel analysis and market shares. Understand the key issues that face mail order specialists enabling you to make well-informed strategic decisions. Seize growth opportunities from the identification of competitive threats and recommended responses.
Read MorePalletFORCE has announced the construction of a new state-of-the-art hub, which it claims will be a flagship for the sector.
The new hub – which will go live by the end of 2008 – will be located in Burton upon Trent. Its single warehouse has been developed to deliver a bespoke environment offering faster throughputs and higher quality of operation.
“Designed to PalletFORCE’s specifications, the hub is squarer in design than conventional warehouses to suit its specific mode of operation, and will allow a quicker turnaround of vehicles With a size of 365,000 sq ft – compared to PalletFORCE’s existing premises capacity of 210,000 sq ft – increased capacity of up to 50pct is anticipated,” says Carl Worgan, Operations Director.
“PalletFORCE has grown rapidly since our launch in 2001, from 500 pallets per night to around 7,000,” explains Neil Carpenter, PalletFORCE’s Commercial and Finance Director. “We have taken on new warehouses as demand has increased and made the most out of these premises, but there is a limit to what can be achieved with the existing arrangements as the buildings were created originally as aircraft hangars!”
Work on the building is anticipated to start in February, with operations scheduled to begin before the end of the year.
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