The impact of the recent snow unsurprisingly impacted on-time deliveries in February, according to the latest data from the IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index. Its data showed that just under 88% of deliveries arrived on time versus 90% in January as heavy snowfall took its toll.
During the month online retail delivery order volumes were up +7% year-on-year but down on January, according to the results.
The results for February also showed the largest percentage of customers choosing next day for the month of February in six years.
Andrew Starkey, head of e-logistics, IMRG: “The huge surge in online retail orders placed in January, when online appeared to benefit from footfall to high streets hitting a five-year January low, appears to have flowed through to lower February volumes.
The retail landscape was looking pretty bleak toward the end of 2018 due to the continuing squeeze on shopper spend, but inflation eased in February so people may start to feel a bit more confident in terms of how they use their discretionary spend. The extreme weather conditions experienced in February have clouded start of year performance trends so it is difficult to predict the outlook for online retail overall at the moment.”
Maria Dahlqvist Canton, global marketing director, MetaPack, said: “The other significant finding from this month’s Index is that cross-border volumes and order values remain strong, especially for EU destinations. This reflects the volume increases that we saw throughout last year, and we fully expect it to continue unless there is a change in exchange rates, in which case experience tells us that cross-border orders will fluctuate.”
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