Delivery at your convenience
Published July 5, 2007 at 12:53 pm · Filed under Features
DHL home delivery service promises fewer returns by delivering parcels when the recipient is at home
Online sales are booming driven by greater use of broadband and greater retail investment in e-commerce sites. According to the e-Retail 2007 report from retail analysts Verdict Research, online retail spending grew by 33.4% last year, more than 13 times faster than the retail sector as a whole and faster than at any time since the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2001.
DHL Home deliverer
Unlike six years ago, Verdict Research expects online sales to keep growing over the next five years, almost tripling from £10.9 billion in 2006 to £28 billion in 3011 (8.9% of all retail spending), with the clothing & footwear, DIY & gardening and food & grocery sectors achieving the fastest growth.
Such confidence in the online sector is bound to please DHL Express, which has just launched a new B2C delivery service that will enable smaller online retailers to deliver small numbers of goods to residential addresses anywhere in the UK.
Introduced as an alternative to companies that will only deliver items during office hours when recipients are usually at work, DHL@Home is available as a 48-hour service for standard deliveries or a 24-hour service for more urgent items.
DHL@Home couriers are self-employed and work flexible hours to enable them to make deliveries any time between 0730 and 2100, Monday-Friday. They must attempt to deliver an item three times, leaving a card with their personal mobile number after their first attempt, so that customers can call them directly to arrange a re-delivery time.
In trials of DHL@Home in 2006, the success rate after three attempts ran at more than 99.5%, saving retailers huge costs in return and redelivery fees. However, consumers can also arrange collection from a different UK address, or alternatively have goods dropped off for collection at a DHL Service Centre if that is more convenient.
So far more than 1,200 retailers have signed up to the service, including O2, MFI, BHS, Halfords and Dixons Online.
Commenting on the service, David Seeby, stock & distribution controller UK e-commerce operations DSG International, said: “At Dixons we currently sell around 10% of all our products online and the internet is a long term strategic sales channel for us. The concept of the lifestyle courier delivering at the time most convenient for our customer ensures a high first time delivery rate which creates strong customer satisfaction and ultimately benefits our business.”
Other services within the DHL@Home range include DHL@Home Authorised Returns, where consumers can request a collection of unwanted goods; and DHL@Home Catalogue, designed for businesses who distribute catalogues to either residential of business addresses.
For more info visit www.dhl.com/
or www.uptilt.com/c.html?rtr=on&s=a4g,seui,kyo,fpem,64g5,fqq6,7p20
