In the latest installment of our 2020 Back to Work Tips series, Dick Stead of the Collect Group takes a look at streamlining your deliveries:
As a marketplace merchant you know the importance of positive reviews and you will be taking every possible step to satisfy your customers, so they get you a 5 -star rating. You get the product right, you get the price right, now all you need to do is get the delivery right.
But we all know delivery is well sorted with most parcel carriers offering timed delivery slots, inflight redirections, excellent tracking.
Well that may be true if you have a regular daily collection arranged with your parcel carrier allowing you to make delivery promises to your customer. But what happens if you only send a small volume of parcels on an ad-hoc basis and because of this your parcel carrier will not provide a daily scheduled collection.
Most parcel carriers concentrate their efforts on planning timed window delivery slots which is great but when you call them at 3pm to ask then to collect your parcels, it falls outside of their pre-planned delivery schedule and often the collection is failed. Talking amongst a range of marketplace merchants we estimate that over 40% of same day ad-hoc collection requests fail and the parcel(s) is collected the following day when it can be built into the time slot delivery schedules.
Bearing the above in mind, marketplace merchants need to make certain that sales delivery promises can be met. You will need to offer a ‘delivered by’ statement, which builds a day buffer into your service offer to account for failed collection. However, some of your customers will find this extended delivery timescale an issue and you may lose valuable orders.
Another option would be to hand deliver the parcels to a Post Office or a PUDO outlet, like Collect Plus and, as long as you meet their latest cut off times (varies by store), you will ensure your parcel has the best chance of being delivered next day.
But many marketplace merchants really do not have the time to ‘shut up shop’ whilst they take their parcels to a Post Office or PUDO outlet. Also, their parcels maybe too heavy/bulky to make this a practical option. Thankfully a new solution is available in increasing areas of the country. The solution is provided by The Collect Group
The Collect Group focuses in the SME space and provides guaranteed, same day collection services within a specified timeslot. Your parcels will be collected and delivered into a range of parcel carriers who are expert in the delivery process. The parcels will be delivered next day. Delighted customers mean more 5* ratings and will help to grow your business.
In summary:
- Make certain you honour your delivery promise
- Add a day to delivery times if you are reliant on unreliable, small volume, ad-hoc collection
- Take parcels to the Post Office or PUDO outlet before their published cut off time to get a next day delivery
- Use a specialist same day ad-hoc collection service provided by the Collect Group. You will be surprised how economic their delivery rates are.
