Delivery - the vital link.
This (more-or-less) is an open letter to suppliers.
I have said for years that the key to successful e-commerce is getting the delivery right. There's a lot of good stuff going on, and a lot of innovative people are working hard, coming up with some great ideas. Although dropping stuff into your garden from a remote-control helicopter probably isn't one of them...
The problem up until recently is that your internet-ordered goods would be delivered at some random time, on a date not of your choosing. So you're effectively house-bound until they deign to turn up. Saving a fiver on a pair of trainers is (in my view) poor recompense for hanging around all day...
Some of the big old retailers have setup the "order online & collect/return to store" model which works really well. It gives the customer confidence, and re-purposes their "bricks & mortar" infrastructure for the digital age. (It also increases footfall and reduces turnover - which is nice if you're on a turn-over based lease arrangement with the landlord!)
Away from the retailers, some of the courier companies have also made the drop & collect system work really well. We use Hermes a lot. We can drop off packets, at our convenience, at one of the half dozen points around the city. If we want to, we can have incoming items dropped off there, and collect it when we want to. It's a shame that the good old Post Office have been so late on the uptake, as they already have a dedicated infrastructure in place.
DPD are also pretty good. We get a text message before 09:00 with a 1-hour wide time slot. Which is pretty accurate, so reduces our hanging about to a minimum.
Suppliers that use these services (or very similar) rate very highly with us.
So, here are my problems with some of the others (you knew there was going to be some!).
First off are the couriers that don't offer these services. Who expect you to hang about "between 08:00 and 18:00" on the off-chance they can be bothered to turn up. And then probably don't. We've been told (unofficially) that one well known company has instructed its drivers to stop business deliveries at 16:30 and switch to domestic customers. Since we are the opposite end of the county from their depot, there is no chance of them getting here before 16:30. With predictable consequences.
But the real problem is with certain suppliers' interpretation of "next day". If we pay for "next day" we want the goods "next day". It's not rocket science. However these maverick supplies interpret "next day" as "the day after we can be bothered to hand it to the carrier" - which isn't the same thing at all. Often because, as well as willfully miss-interpreting the meaning of the phrase "next day", they also willfully miss-interpret the phrase "in stock" - which I have criticised previously.
Needless to say, these suppliers do not get repeat business from us.
I have said for years that the key to successful e-commerce is getting the delivery right. There's a lot of good stuff going on, and a lot of innovative people are working hard, coming up with some great ideas. Although dropping stuff into your garden from a remote-control helicopter probably isn't one of them...The problem up until recently is that your internet-ordered goods would be delivered at some random time, on a date not of your choosing. So you're effectively house-bound until they deign to turn up. Saving a fiver on a pair of trainers is (in my view) poor recompense for hanging around all day...
Some of the big old retailers have setup the "order online & collect/return to store" model which works really well. It gives the customer confidence, and re-purposes their "bricks & mortar" infrastructure for the digital age. (It also increases footfall and reduces turnover - which is nice if you're on a turn-over based lease arrangement with the landlord!)
Away from the retailers, some of the courier companies have also made the drop & collect system work really well. We use Hermes a lot. We can drop off packets, at our convenience, at one of the half dozen points around the city. If we want to, we can have incoming items dropped off there, and collect it when we want to. It's a shame that the good old Post Office have been so late on the uptake, as they already have a dedicated infrastructure in place.
DPD are also pretty good. We get a text message before 09:00 with a 1-hour wide time slot. Which is pretty accurate, so reduces our hanging about to a minimum.
Suppliers that use these services (or very similar) rate very highly with us.
So, here are my problems with some of the others (you knew there was going to be some!).
First off are the couriers that don't offer these services. Who expect you to hang about "between 08:00 and 18:00" on the off-chance they can be bothered to turn up. And then probably don't. We've been told (unofficially) that one well known company has instructed its drivers to stop business deliveries at 16:30 and switch to domestic customers. Since we are the opposite end of the county from their depot, there is no chance of them getting here before 16:30. With predictable consequences.
But the real problem is with certain suppliers' interpretation of "next day". If we pay for "next day" we want the goods "next day". It's not rocket science. However these maverick supplies interpret "next day" as "the day after we can be bothered to hand it to the carrier" - which isn't the same thing at all. Often because, as well as willfully miss-interpreting the meaning of the phrase "next day", they also willfully miss-interpret the phrase "in stock" - which I have criticised previously.
Needless to say, these suppliers do not get repeat business from us.
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