Doddle boss Tim Robinson says it has a huge opportunity because some workplaces are becoming reluctant to accept personal deliveries at the office because they’re clogging up the firm’s mailrooms.
Doddle offers collection points at railway stations and elsewhere so shoppers can conveniently collect parcels as they go about their daily business.
Robinson says: “We’ve got data from one building in Canary Wharf during the Christmas period which showed that 80% of parcels in the mailroom were personal deliveries. Even in October it was 50 per cent. More employers are banning it to free up their mailrooms.
We have a big education job to do through marketing and advertising to change customer attitudes and behaviour. It is our biggest challenge.
Some people like getting goods delivered to home, others are using click-and-collect in store more and another response we sometimes get is the office solution. People tell us ‘why do I need your service? I can get my purchases sent straight to work’. The idea of having a third party location is not well understood. It is our job to tell people that they can use us as a secondary delivery address.”
One Response
As an online retailer, flats and workplaces are the biggest sources of non-delivery complaints.
In the past I have had packages returned by mailroom or personnel manageres marked “not allowed here” and basic return to sender. The customer outraged thier workplace refused to pass on their purchases.
If these figures are correct then I forsee an increase in returned AND non-delivered packages to workplaces. It’s not the job of the staff in personnel or mailroom to deal with person mail, so why should they? How many items have we sent to workplaces that have ended up in the wrong hands or the bin becuase of disgruntled mailroom staff or an overnight change in policy?
But on the other hand if companies ban this practice then ecommerce will likely suffer.
Doddle is one of the solutions available, but it won’t beat getting your online purchases delivered to your desk.
Maybe the staff could take a pay cut to allow for a personal mail employee to deal with ? Yeah, right !