The next two months will be a testing time for everyone in the multichannel retail world, none more so than the delivery companies, who are at the sharp-end of service provision. This time last year you would have been hard-pressed to find someone who was seriously predicting the imminent demise (more…)
Researching the next IRUK Top500 report has revealed significant enhancements in logistics practices over the past year. Martin Shaw, InternetRetailing’s Senior Researcher, shares some of the findings. In the course of re-making our index it has become increasingly clear that what qualifies a retailer as a top performer can change (more…)
Despite predictions of £1bn worth of sales being made this coming Black Friday – which is now precisely four weeks away – research from IMRG and eDigitalResearch has found UK shoppers evenly split as to whether or not they are actually looking forward to the event. According to the survey of 2,030 (more…)
Although he’s not in a position to give us his opinion on how to run a successful ecommerce business, few people were more practiced in the art of expansion than Napoleon Bonaparte. The Little Corporal came a cropper 200 years ago, finally succumbing at the battle of Waterloo in June (more…)
UK retailers can look forward to a second spike in online shopping this Christmas, according to a study from eBay Enterprise. Analysing data from last year, and projecting it on to what might happen in just a few weeks’ time, eBay Enterprise has concluded that while Black Friday and Cyber Monday (more…)
Last week saw the introduction of the Consumer Rights Act on 1 October, which has a number of implications that impact particularly on the e-commerce logistics business. Perhaps the most obvious is its potential to put more pressure on returns networks. eDelivery spoke to one of the Acts authors, Jo (more…)
The new Consumer Rights Act came into force today (1 October 2015) and ushers in what some in the retail sector believe will be a new era of returns headaches. It’s not hard to see why. For the first time, consumers have 30 days to return faulty products and get (more…)
Pure-players have to go omnichannel if they want to grow in the future; the physical store is an especially powerful and indispensable part of an omni-channel strategy, writes Lotte Weichenfeldt Schjøtt of delivery management software company EDI-Soft. Today there are many ways of reaching the consumers, such as physical stores, online shops, mobile (more…)
Courier firms know only too well how avoidable mistakes can easily lead to reputation damage and loss of business for brands shipping products to customers; problems have a strong impact on a retailer’s brand, not just that of their carrier. Eliminating mistakes might never be possible, but reducing your exposure (more…)
The last mile might occupy the thoughts of many in the delivery sector, but it’s what happens miles above us that matters to the big names of the shipping world. FedEx in particular has its sights set on supremacy in the air, having ordered 50 new Boeing 767 freight planes, (more…)
According to experts, free shipping in online shops is unsustainable. However, others believe that free shipping is a powerful tool to drive online sales, if used the right way, writes Lotte Weichenfeldt Schjøtt of EDI-Soft. Retail Expert Natalie Berg says in her new report The Future of Retail: 10 Trends of (more…)
Research and consultancy firm Apex Insight has published an indepth review of the European parcel locker landscape, looking at local parcel pick-up and drop-off points intended at easing the final mile pressure. In this, our second snapshot of European Parcel Shop and Locker Networks Market Insight Report 2015, we look at (more…)
Research and consultancy firm Apex Insight has published an indepth review of the European parcel locker landscape. The European Parcel Shop and Locker Networks Market Insight Report 2015 report focuses on the networks of locations within the last mile delivery of parcels (typically, local parcel pick-up and drop-off points for consumers and businesses), (more…)
Online shopping has come a long way over the past five years, writes Planet Retail’s retail insights director, Natalie Berg. Websites have been upgraded and mobile-enabled; there are more payment options than ever before, and click-and-collect has become a mainstream option for shoppers. But the one area – and the most (more…)
One of the biggest influences on shoppers in 2015 is the provision of convenient collection points for online purchases, according to retail analysts Planet Retail. With around half of global shoppers looking for convenient pickup points, “click-and-collect is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s now a prerequisite.” Even those retailers that (more…)
Retailing will become more personalised, more collaborative and more socially-influenced, according to new research by Planet Retail. In a report titled The Future of Retail: 10 Trends of Tomorrow and featuring case studies from retailers around the globe, the analyst house warns that retailers have to start preparing themselves for (more…)
On 13 July we ran a story on eDelivery about Yodel’s decision to cap the amount of next-day deliveries it would take on in relation to Black Friday 2015. The cap would be determined by forecasts from and discussions with retailer that Yodel works with. It was move we described (more…)
Today is the day Amazon marks its 20th birthday. When it started life it sold books, via the internet, hoping to gather enough data about its customers that it could eventually start selling them other things that match their interests. Now it’s unleashed a day of promotions that it claims will (more…)
Last week, we featured an opinion article from Roger Sumner-Rivers, MD of ParcelHero, on the topic of the planned sell off by the government of its remaining stake in Royal Mail. In it, Sumner-Rivers put forward the view that the move was broadly positive for customers, but could well open up (more…)
Next-day and same-day delivery services could be becoming extinct, according to research from JDA and Centiro, into the online shopping habits and preferences of more than 2,000 UK consumers. Key findings of the research include: Only 18% of consumers said same/next-day delivery was important; it seems that speed really isn’t (more…)