Delivery, delivery, delivery.
Forget location, location, location with Internet Retailing it’s delivery, delivery, delivery, or you’re no friend of ours.
March 2008
There was an interesting interview with Nick Roberston Chief Exceutive of ASOS in the Observer over the weekend. In the interview with Zoe Wood Nick gets very hot under the collar with those critics who claim that people don't buy clothes online. "Every month 51 per cent of 16-to-24-year-old girls buy clothes online," he says. "Get over the f***ing trying-on thing." "Convenience is why people buy on the web", he continues. "Have you tried queuing up in Zara on a Saturday afternoon?"
Well yes Nick we have, and we know how you feel. However there's still a healthy part of the population who goes shopping on a Saturday afternoon because what they want is something to wear on a Saturday night and unfortunately you'll never get that with the web, yet. Unfortunately you're also not likely to get the goods a week later if our own experience is anything to go by.
Internet delivery still isn't up to scratch, and we still find countless websites that fail to grasp that delivery is as important as the right price, when it comes to Internet retailing, and failure to get delivery right is still one of the major reasons why customers don't come back.
Last week I bought from two different websites on the same day, one was a small independent record company and the other was a large household name with a selection of high-street shops. Guess which one I received first? Yup the small independent record company.
An hour and a half after I put in my order for a package of CDs and a 7" single from the small indie label Memphis Industries - postage and packaging £3.50 – I got an email to say they had been despatched, and the next morning I received the full order.
Two days after my order for some small Danish coloured plastic bricks – postage and packaging £3.25 - I received an email saying they had been despatched. Next day nothing arrived, and nothing arrived the day after that either, finally six days after my order my parcel from the Danish brick manufacturer who will not be mentioned finally arrived.
The difference in cost for the postage and packing was negligible but the results were totally different, Memphis Industries now have one very happy customer and two favourable mentions on Internet Retailing to help them on Google. Where as the Danish brick manufacturer now has two deeply unsatisfied parents who will never buy from them again, and will moan to anyone within hearing range about their poor service, plus one very hacked-off seven year old who now hates them, and no links from Internet Retailing.
So what went wrong? While one business sent their goods from the UK and seems to understand the Internet, the other sent their goods from Germany and has no idea of the meaning of convenience.
It took four days for the package to wend its way all the way from Germany, if I'd known that the package would be sent from Germany and would take at least four days to arrive I would have never ordered from them, and looking at the site again there's no reference to the orders being despatched via Germany. Plus they're not the only ones to do this. Back in November I bought 10 CDs in a sale and they turned up 6-7 days later from the Channel Islands, I didn't expect to wait a whole week for something that was "in stock." Plus all 10 items arrived separately, which not only irritated Les the postman but it seemed a colossal waste of packaging.
Yes, it's cheaper to send goods from the Channel Islands but the postal service in the Channel Islands leaves a lot to be desired, plus despatching everything from a central European hub is a great way of saving money for you, but does it really help the customer?
We recommend a quick look at the Nick Robertson interview mentioned earlier, as well as getting heated about convenience he also reveals a few other home truths that are well worth reading.
This article is written by Marcus Austin and sourced from www.internetretailing.net
