Greater delivery options equal more online sales in U.K. test
Offering delivery options has increased consumers` propensity to buy online, reports the U.K.`s postal service Royal Mail. Last July, Royal Mail started a test with 36,500 addresses in Nottingham, offering customers automatic re-delivery options to different locations if they were not home to receive packages, the most common choice being delivery to a local post office where customers could pick up the package.
"25% of people who collected parcels at a post office said that as a consequence they shopped more--not that they planned to buy more but that they had bought more," says David Taylor, managing director of home shopping for Royal Mail. "I wasn`t expecting near as big as that."
Royal Mail has already offered the delivery option service to another 20,000 addresses in Nottingham, plans to offer it to 100,000 more in the next six months and to all 27 million residential addresses in the U.K. within three years. Royal Mail is encouraging retailers to implement a system through Kinek Technologies Inc. that would allow customers to choose their delivery preferences at the time of purchase. Customers could be notified via e-mail when delivery was attempted and where the package was delivered, along with any instructions for retrieving the packages, such as an i.d. number to open the door of a delivery locker.
Royal Mail is backing the service as part of a long-term plan to encourage more online shopping and, thus, more use of the mails. In addition, by handling the package fewer times, Royal Mail reduces expenses. Most consumers today must retrieve undelivered packages from a Royal Mail bulk depot. But dealing with individual consumers is expensive for depots because the depots are designed to handle bulk movement of mail, Taylor says.
With the delivery options service, a postal carrier will leave a message with the customers With the delivery options service, a postal carrier With the delivery options service, a postal carrierís mail telling the recipient where the package can be picked up. The carrier then writes the local post office address on the package and takes it back to the depot. The next day, the depot delivers it to the local post office, where the customer can pick it up after noon. Because depots deliver mail to local post offices twice a day, there is little additional cost to delivering the package to the local post office. A s a result of the Nottingham test, Royal Mail has been able to reduce customer service staffing at the local depot, Taylor reports.
Royal Mail post offices are open 9-5:30 Monday through Friday and 9-12:30 on Saturdays. But many are operated under contract by retailers and in retail locations, so the post offices are actually open longer hours.
Royal Mail also is testing a locker delivery service, whereby the carrier will leave the package in locker and the customer will receive a number to use to open the locker. Only 3% of customers have opted for that service, which costs customers £1.
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