May saw the highest use of next-day services for delivery, according to the latest figures from the IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index.
The figures showed that online parcel delivery order volumes were up by 14.8% year on year in May with the use of next day or specified delivery hitting a record high for the time of year at 37% of UK delivered orders.
However once again this seems to have impacted on-time delivery performance which hit its lowest May level in the history of the Index with 88% of parcels arriving on time.
Andy Mulcahy, strategy and insight director at IMRG said the figures raised interesting questions. “IMRG have carried out shopper surveys every year for the past nine years and what’s interesting about the move toward faster fulfilment is that customers haven’t really been asking for it – these studies have consistently found that two days is still perfectly acceptable,” he said.
“As technology and processes have evolved however, industry has come to view it as a potential differentiator in acquiring and retaining customers and their expectations are changing in line with that over time. A lingering question is whether they always know they are getting next-day; some orders are sent on premium services because customers require it and are prepared to pay for them, but many are not requested. How many ‘genuine’ next-day deliveries fail and how many orders are being delivered next-day when the customer does not actually expect them?”
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