Doddle have appointed Paddy Earnshaw as CMO, with a place on the main board. He will be responsible for the strategic direction of the business and overseeing its aggressive growth plans. Paddy joins from WorldPay where he was Customer Experience Director and has held senior marketing roles at Moneycorp and Travelex.
His remit also includes managing the company’s £4 million marketing budget for 2014/15 and its key agencies which include M&C Saatchi. Forthcoming campaigns are planned at key station locations where there will be a significant presence promoting the convenience of having online shopping delivered to Doddle shops over the festive period. This will be followed by a ‘returns’ campaign highlighting the quick and easy way to return unwanted Christmas presents through the Doddle shop network. These will run alongside the existing multi channel marketing programmes which are supporting the ongoing rollout of stores.
What’s interesting here is the size of the marketing budget, Doddle reportedly had a £24m investment so they’re splurging a sixth of their budget on marketing. Whilst the locations I’ve seen are high spec and well staffed, it’s not cheap, with the number of Doddle locations springing up they’re soon going to get through £24m and be looking for a second round of investment.
Paddy will be working closely with the growing number of retailers that have already signed up for the service to explore innovative ways of reducing costs such as batching or grouping of returns for collection, thereby reducing the carriage cost of each package; pre scanning of returns to provide real time information to retailers; pre-inspection of packaging and labelling of returns to ensure they are fit for shipment; and checking for damage and processing refunds on behalf of the retailer.
Commenting on his appointment Paddy said: “Online shopping volumes have exploded in recent years and the industry has struggled to keep pace and meet service expectations. Over 100 million deliveries fail each year mainly because 50% of people aren’t home during the day – that’s lot of disappointed customers and unnecessary cost. Doddle is a consumer brand driven by consumer needs and is set to transform the delivery and returns experience with its unique agnostic approach. I am very excited to be part of this revolutionary new start up which offers retailers a highly convenient alternative service for their customers.”
3 Responses
Just had a look at Doddle website and my nearest drop off point is 188.3 miles away!
I don’t think I will be using them any time soon 🙂
My nearest drop-off point is 71+ miles away. But I spotted last week that an unoccupied retail unit at Norwich Station is being prepared as a Doddle shop. That is nearly as near as my nearst RM drop-off at around 1 mile.
However, short term parking/traffic congestion is a huge issue at Norwich Station. Non-rail Doddle users will not be over welcome.