UK lagging behind Germany, US in parcel delivery efficiency

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Feb 9, 2018

A new report has revealed that UK retailers are not quite hitting the mark when it comes to online deliveries, with 78% of UK consumers having experienced late of failed deliveries compared to 66% in the US and 48% in Germany.

Ecommerce data experts PCA Predict polled over 300 retailers in the UK, US and Germany, and found that British consumers are more likely than their American and German counterparts to have their online parcels go missing.

Furthermore, British e-commerce brands are losing on average an estimated £183,000 a year through lost or failed deliveries, compared with £156,000 in the US and £107,000  in Germany.

Each failed delivery costs British retailers on average £14.35, a sum that increases as more parcels go missing. According to the report, 5.6% of all UK orders failed to arrive last year.

“If you consider that one in twenty of all online orders don’t make it to the intended recipient first time, these costs quickly build up. Failed deliveries not only carry cost implications, they can also cause significant damage to the retailer’s brand reputation, resulting in loss of repeat custom and failure to attract new customers,” comments Chris Boaz, ‎Head of Marketing of PCA Predict.

Retailers realise the risk, with 54% willing to refund the delivery charges to the customer and 54% open to paying additional costs for redelivery. An additional 38% will offer the customer a discount as an apology.

According to the survey, the primary reason for failed deliveries is failure to collect accurate customer address data. Customers have such a low patience threshold for address entry that 61% would abandon their purchase if they encountered issues when entering their address details.

“To mitigate against the issues caused by incorrect address data, retailers need to implement verification solutions that allow customers to provide as accurate data as possible,” said Boaz.

“It’s essential that online retailers facilitate a streamlined user experience that ensures customers can go through the checkout process with ease. Removing this friction from the checkout process will play a huge part in fixing failed deliveries, to the joy of both online retailers and customers.”