Almost half of UK online shoppers will leave their Christmas gift shopping until the last minute, despite worries over non-delivery.
Online retailers in trying to meet their customers needs and maximise revenues, are takng orders ever later before Christmas.
They have control over how late they allow placement of orders. But they then have to place their faith in the Royal Mail or couriers for delivering the orders "for the last mile”. Over this they have little control. Add a dash of bad weather and it can all fall apart.
The cost of missing a delivery date
28% of shoppers who experience late delivery will not shop again with that online retailer, even though it may well have been the courier who slipped up (Survey by Econsultancy).
Some shopping stats:
46% of shoppers leave gift shopping until the last minute even though they know delivery is not guaranteed.
Only 33% expect last minute online purchases to arrive on time
40% worry about delivery times but plough on and order regardless
27% expect last minute deliveries to be late
What happened in 2010?
57% orders were 1 day late
20% were over a week late and were probably delivered after Christmas.
Coming up to Christmas 2011
Of 40 website scrutinised in the run up to this Christmas, 85% don’t provide clear enough details of their last order date.
John Lewis has clear ordering deadlines whereas Tescos, Next, and Amazon are less clear.
What to do
Deliver on your promises.
Make the delivery dates on your website crystal clear - right the way through the length of the buying journey from the home page/landing page, to product pages and the shopping basket pages. Nobody wants to get all the way to the shopping cart only to find out that they won’t receive their delivery on time.
Last year Next used a “count down to final delivery date” counter on its pages which was a very clear way to manage customer expectations.
With bad weather, people do realise that this might present extra difficulties but they do expect to be kept informed with up to the minute bulletins.
Disappointed customers are less likely to be forgiving and will tweet and share their negative experiences widely. So, providing reassurance right at the very start of a visitor’s engagement, that their order will arrive on time, is crucial to them buying and building a loyal following.
If you need to update the order information on your site, in time for Christmas, then call 08450 740068 or email sem@e-xanthos.co.uk.
Christmas Shoppers dont trust retailers to deliver on time, Graham Charlton, EConsultancy 23 November 2011