Mark Lewis, ex eBay UK Managing Director, was on BBC Working Lunch today to plug his new company – Collect+ of which he is now CEO. He had some valid points to make about missed deliveries being a pain point for online consumers and explained how Collect+ can solve this issue.
With some large retailers buyers can opt for a Collect+ delivery by simply entering their postcode and confirming a local shop or garage where they’ll collect their purchase instead of having a missed delivery to their home.
What wasn’t explained in the program is how smaller businesses will have to contact each buyer individually to negotiate and delivery destination which is where the service falls down. It will be interesting to see if an automated solution becomes available for all ecommerce merchants and of course for eBay sellers.
You can view the program on BBC iPlayer for the next week with the relevant section starting 19mins, 20 secs into the program.
7 Responses
If mark is involved there must be something in this. He is a very switched on guy. I will be interested to see how this system develops. At the moment the thought of ringing every customer is not viable!
John,
Mark has a distinguished record.
However, when I look at the shady local shops that Collect+ are dealing with locally for me, I’ll take the risks of leaving parcels on the doorstep. ;o)
dw
every one that sells or buys on line has a front door of some sort
cant work out why any delivery company would try and ignore it
an out of hours service when folks are at home would work better
Hmm, good idea in theory but the shops they have always look a little dodgy to say the least…
I wouldn’t trust them at all because of this.
I think there’s some potential in this. If they get it right I think it will do well. I only met Mark the once but he seemed pretty savvy to me and knows what he’s doing.
Steve – EthicalCompanies.co.uk
I will never forgive him for practically wrecking Ebay with the free postage debacle last year and basically being “econimical with the truth” about it on Working Lunch at the time.
I can’t watch iplayer but I’d be interested to know if he was asked about that i.e. how the free p and p was abolished within 3 months and he then “left for new challenges” the same month yeah right.
Connect+ of course is only new to him its not a new company and there have been reports of poor service in the past along the lines of “do you know where my parcel is?, yes by my foot they haven’t been to collect it or any other parcels!” which seems to happen with the more rural out of the way places.
But the idea itself is excellent as it allows you to offer courier service at least 50% cheaper as long as your buyer is prepared to go and pick it up and there are alot of pick up points. Great saving for things like a box of books or vinyl lps for example.