Following the successful free trial at Milton Keynes, Doddle went live to the general public this morning.
At the opening of the new London Waterloo store, the first two people through the store were TOWIE stars, Joey Essex and Sam Faiers, who quelled recent rumours of a split in their stop-start relationship by turning up together to Doddle’s launch and making the first ever collections from the new London store. It is the first time they have been pictured together in public since news that Joey had called time on their relationship.
Joey showed that even a TOWIE star could manage the simple Doddle in-store process, designed to take the stress out of collecting and returning online shopping, as he handed over a huge teddy bear to Sam as a peace offering and in a sign that they are hoping to patch things up. Sam collected the popular relationship advice book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, which she promptly handed over to Joey.
Commenting on the gift Joey said: “Hopefully this book means I won’t be needing to send any of Sam’s stuff back to her although at least I’ve got the option of popping to my local Doddle in Essex if I need to. I order a lot of stuff online and sending it back is always a nightmare, so this new Doddle service is reem.”
Joey and Sam’s appearance comes as the retailer reveals that six in ten (61%) shoppers revealed they had missed a delivery in the last six months.
Sam said: “Like any good Essex girl I’m a complete shopaholic, so I know all too well how frustrating it can be when you end up missing a delivery. It’s important for my business that I stay on top of trends and never miss a beat, so the launch of Doddle couldn’t have come soon enough. It’s great that there’s one at my local Chelmsford train station so I can pick up and drop off items really easily around my busy schedule.”
Now Joey and Sam have sorted out their relationship on to the important stuff…. In addition to the shops at Chelmsford and Waterloo, Doddle has also today officially opened its store in Milton Keynes with further shops opening in London, Southampton, Woking, Birmingham, Glasgow, Basingstoke, Three Bridges (Image credit: Jim Haysom), Tonbridge and Bromley South, Surrey in the next four weeks. Up to 30 stores are planned by Christmas.
We’re expecting that collections will be free for purchases from participating retailers and will cost around £1.95 for others.
Doddle also say that they have negotiated some superb rates for sending items in the UK (less than 16kg and maximum size of 50cm x 50cm x 40cm), including returns consumers need to pay carriage for, although ASOS returns are free. They will be adding International shipments to their services in November – just in time for Christmas.
Next thing to consider… if there’s a Doddle store near you, is it a potential new distribution option for your ecommerce business? For casual sellers, if the rates are attractive, depending on what time Doddle’s couriers collect it could be a fantastic late night drop off location for your ecommerce parcels. Particularly for those who sell online and hold down a full time job, despatching parcels in the late evening or early morning could be an ideal solution.
4 Responses
Joey Essex – what a role model he is!
I have been keeping an eye on this service and to this day I am still quite confused by it. Can we offer to deliver to these shops for the customer to pickup? Similar to Argos click and collect I guess but where is the integration for our webstores?
Joey Essex = I won’t even be investigating this option.
S.