A great news story from Waitrose & Partners this week as it revealed the company is the first UK retailer to trial in-home delivery to customers whilst they are out.
In the US a number of such trials have been attempted with retailers and lock manufacturers working together to provide delivery when the customer isn’t around – either to their cars or their homes.
In its trial, which Waitrose & Partners is running in conjunction with Yale, 100 customers in London will initially use the service. However the retailer has is considering a further roll out to 1,000 customers in the spring.
It will be interesting to see how this trial fares. When it comes to trusted brands you can’t get much better than Waitrose & Partners so will customers be more welcoming of a driver that they don’t know entering their homes because of their trust in the brand? The service includes the driver putting relevant items in the fridge and freezer and leaving other items on the kitchen counter or “where the customer has instructed”. Would that go so far as arranging my kitchen cupboards I wonder?
Another impressive story this week comes from CollectPlus which is helping out customers impacted by the House of Fraser collapse and subsequent sale to Sports Direct. CollectPlus has been holding returned parcels since August 8 after a dispute between House of Fraser and its warehousing partner meant it was unable to get the parcels back for processing. After administrators announced customer refunds were unlikely CollectPlus has taken the decision to return items to customers itself for free through a partnership with Clipper Logistics.
In a bid to enable consumers to better manage their deliveries Royal Mail has launched a new app allowing them acccess to various services, such as being able to rebook failed deliveries for example.
XPO Logistics has announced the rollout of 5,000 intelligent robots in its warehouses in North America, the UK and eight other European countries. The robots will work alongside humans.
In a bid to reduce CO2 emissions by half by 2020 Hermes has announced the largest ever initial order of Compressed Natural Gas vehicles in the UK. The company is also introducing electric vans into its fleet.
Finally we have news of Conveyor Networks and three new appointments the company has made and Ford beginning serial production of the StreetScooter WORK XL delivery van.
Image credit: Waitrose & Partners
