E-retailers stay on top of meeting holiday shopping load, Keynote reports
When it comes to product delivery, online retailers appear to be underpromising and overdelivering this holiday shopping season, says the latest fulfillment reports from Keynote. “The degree to which retailers are exceeding delivery expectations over the past couple of weeks has been very high, leading to the conclusion that they are setting very conservative expectations.” Keynote’s latest report says. “Meeting customer expectations is easier if the expectations are conservative.”
This week, Keynote takes a look at retailers who have most closely met their delivery promises. Keynote says retailers meeting the most realistic delivery as promised are:
-- 800.com, delivers 6% earlier: promises delivery in 6 days; actual delivery in 5.7 days
-- L.L. Bean, 20% earlier: promises delivery in average of 6.8 days; actual delivery in 5.5
-- Banana Republic, 30% earlier: promises delivery in 10 days; actual delivery in 6.9
-- Circuit City, 32% earlier: promises delivery in a little under 10 days (9.9); actual delivery in 6.7
-- The Gap, 32% earlier: promises delivery in 10 days; actual delivery in 6.7.
As for exceeding promises by the greatest margin, Kmart Corp.’s BlueLight.com now leads the list of 18 retailers tracked by Keynote, supplanting TowerRecords.com.
BlueLight delivers orders 67% faster than the expectation set with shoppers, setting a conservative delivery estimate of over two weeks (14.5 days), but actually delivering in 4.5 days.
Other retailers that exceeded expectations for delivery:
-- TowerRecords.com, delivers 66.7% earlier: promises delivery in 10.6 days; actual delivery in 3.5
-- WalMart.com, 63% earlier: promises delivery in 12.6 days; actual delivery in 4.6
-- Jjill.com, 56% earlier: promises delivery in 13.5 days; actual delivery in 5.9
-- Old Navy, 54% earlier: promises delivery in 13.4 days; actual delivery in 6.2.
Delivery has stayed strong so far this year, although still taking longer than it took last year. The average time it took test packages that Keynote ordered from sites to arrive is 6 days 6 hours. Last year, retailers on average took 4 days, 15 hours to deliver orders. The average promised delivery time this year is 11 days, 17 hrs.
Last year, during the 2000 holiday season, 8% of last minute orders missed delivery in time for Christmas (according to last year`s Holiday 2000 E-Commerce Fulfillment Report).
Online retailers also are not experiencing problems with site responsiveness, Keynote reports. Using automated tests of site responsiveness, Keynote says the average time it takes to log onto a home page, enter a search phrase and receive results was 8.24 seconds, down from 8.82 seconds the week before. The fastest site continues to be JCPenney.com, which responded in 3.48 seconds.
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