The Cost of Christmas: £132.5m in Lost Post
Hundreds of thousands of online gift orders will go missing this festive season, says address specialist Postcode Anywhere
Worcester, United Kingdom, October 07, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Missed deliveries will cost online UK businesses £132.5m this Christmas, according to the latest ecommerce research.
The cost is attributed to the price of replacing and redirecting poorly addressed parcels, “not at home” delivery, and late packages which result in the loss of repeat business from disgruntled customers. The findings have been drawn from studies carried out by Worcester-based address specialists Postcode Anywhere and Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) earlier this year.
Postcode Anywhere’s MD Guy Mucklow said: “It is taken as a fact of life that goods go astray in the order and fulfilment process. But for the hundreds of thousands of consumers who lose their orders, this is simply unacceptable – and at Christmas, doubly so.
“Our studies show this will translate into direct costs for online businesses this festive season. By improving procedures across the whole ordering process, from sign-up to check-out, ecommerce vendors can save a considerable sum of money, while improving their online reputation and retaining the customers they already have.
“At one extreme of the fulfilment chain, processes could be improved by ensuring goods are delivered by a company offering guaranteed delivery slots. At the other, it could mean revising the online checkout so address details can be captured accurately, using tools such as address auto-fill.
“Despite our sophisticated postal system, incorrect addresses are still a huge problem in the UK. Consider that missing just one letter in a postcode could be the difference between, for example, a Manchester and a Milton Keynes address. That’s a wasted 300-mile round trip for the courier and over a week’s delay for the customer – annoying at the best of times, and unacceptable for a last-minute Christmas gift.
“Although mistyped data is often the ‘fault’ of the consumer, it is up to the e-commerce vendor to make sure they collect an accurate address, because they bear a responsibility to their customers along with the cost of replacement or redirection if things go wrong.
“By our estimations, UK ecommerce will lose £2m on Christmas day alone, simply because of missing postcodes or incorrectly captured addresses. Address auto-fill and validation tools from suppliers such as Postcode Anywhere nip these problems in the bud before the customer has even completed their order.”
Guy is a member of UK technology association Intellect and sits on Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) address database advisory board. For more information on any of Postcode Anywhere’s products and services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.
The scope and range of the data in the study, IMRG’s Valuing Home Delivery Survey 2009-10, represents 95 retailers, more than 12 million online consumers, over 3.5 million active online shoppers and over 14 million parcels dispatched. A summary of the report can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com/imrg-survey. Estimates for the Christmas period assume online sales of £6.6bn during this time.
###
Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
jim@postcodeanywhere.com
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Notes to Editors:
Postcode Anywhere press centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press-centre/
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf
About Postcode Anywhere
Postcode Anywhere has been providing address services for ten years and is the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®). A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in successive Deloitte fast-growth European technology company lists. Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning and customer profiling. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.
The cost is attributed to the price of replacing and redirecting poorly addressed parcels, “not at home” delivery, and late packages which result in the loss of repeat business from disgruntled customers. The findings have been drawn from studies carried out by Worcester-based address specialists Postcode Anywhere and Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) earlier this year.
Postcode Anywhere’s MD Guy Mucklow said: “It is taken as a fact of life that goods go astray in the order and fulfilment process. But for the hundreds of thousands of consumers who lose their orders, this is simply unacceptable – and at Christmas, doubly so.
“Our studies show this will translate into direct costs for online businesses this festive season. By improving procedures across the whole ordering process, from sign-up to check-out, ecommerce vendors can save a considerable sum of money, while improving their online reputation and retaining the customers they already have.
“At one extreme of the fulfilment chain, processes could be improved by ensuring goods are delivered by a company offering guaranteed delivery slots. At the other, it could mean revising the online checkout so address details can be captured accurately, using tools such as address auto-fill.
“Despite our sophisticated postal system, incorrect addresses are still a huge problem in the UK. Consider that missing just one letter in a postcode could be the difference between, for example, a Manchester and a Milton Keynes address. That’s a wasted 300-mile round trip for the courier and over a week’s delay for the customer – annoying at the best of times, and unacceptable for a last-minute Christmas gift.
“Although mistyped data is often the ‘fault’ of the consumer, it is up to the e-commerce vendor to make sure they collect an accurate address, because they bear a responsibility to their customers along with the cost of replacement or redirection if things go wrong.
“By our estimations, UK ecommerce will lose £2m on Christmas day alone, simply because of missing postcodes or incorrectly captured addresses. Address auto-fill and validation tools from suppliers such as Postcode Anywhere nip these problems in the bud before the customer has even completed their order.”
Guy is a member of UK technology association Intellect and sits on Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) address database advisory board. For more information on any of Postcode Anywhere’s products and services, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.
The scope and range of the data in the study, IMRG’s Valuing Home Delivery Survey 2009-10, represents 95 retailers, more than 12 million online consumers, over 3.5 million active online shoppers and over 14 million parcels dispatched. A summary of the report can be found at www.postcodeanywhere.com/imrg-survey. Estimates for the Christmas period assume online sales of £6.6bn during this time.
###
Media contact for Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams – PR Executive, Postcode Anywhere
jim@postcodeanywhere.com
+44 (0) 1905 888 570
Notes to Editors:
Postcode Anywhere press centre at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press-centre/
Press Pack download: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/assets/PDFs/press-pack-2010.pdf
About Postcode Anywhere
Postcode Anywhere has been providing address services for ten years and is the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®). A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in successive Deloitte fast-growth European technology company lists. Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning and customer profiling. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit www.postcodeanywhere.com.
Contact
Postcode Anywhere
Jim Williams
+44 (0)1905 888 550
www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/
Jim Williams
+44 (0)1905 888 550
www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/
Contact
Categories