Breaking News - E Retail industry creates Home Delivery Trust Scheme
A new HOME DELIVERY TRUST SCHEME FOR INTERNET SHOPPING is launched by e-retail industry body IMRG, in the keynote address by James Roper, CEO, IMRG, at the UK EXPRESS DELIVERY CONFERENCE, NEC, Birmingham.
The scheme includes an 'INTERNET DELIVERY IS SAFE' Trust Mark and an associated IMRG DELIVERY CHARTER©.The IMRG Delivery Charter represents a set of recommendations, guidelines and requirements on and to stakeholders - Consumers, Merchants and Transporters - as to the core characteristics of effective stakeholder protection in the delivery of e-retailing products and services. The associated Internet Delivery Trust Mark can be displayed by organisations that sign up to the charter, demonstrating their intent to enhance the home delivery experience for all concerned.
The internet age has brought convenience, speed and choice to shoppers, yet consumers routinely have to settle for a "take it or leave it" approach to delivery services with vague delivery promises. Uncertain delivery times and sketchy delivery information deter millions of people from shopping online. This is costing the industry significant loss of orders and incurring huge avoidable operating costs. However, fulfilment is set to become one of the main merchant differentiators, since few others exist.
"Online shopping delivery works well most of the time, as is evidenced by UK consumers buying £1.5 billion of goods on the internet in May 2005, 36% more than they did last year," said Roper. "But home delivery remains the Achilles' Heel of online shopping. When a delivery does go wrong, it can cause considerable stress, inconvenience and cost for all of the stakeholders involved - the Consumer, the Merchant and the Transporter. The IMRG Delivery Charter is a major industry initiative to unite all stakeholders behind the task of addressing issues and solving problems associated with home delivery to their mutual benefit. The Charter will establish minimum commitments whilst facilitating clear communication between stakeholders."
The UK's 24 million online shoppers will spend £19 billion via the internet and other interactive channels in 2005. Some 400 million parcels will be delivered to them, attracting transportation and packing costs of around £4 billion. Already 7% of all UK retail, online shopping will approach 9% of retail sales by the end of this year. The sector is set to treble in value by 2010, by which time it will generate over a billion home deliveries each year.
Because most e-retail deliveries are too large to fit through a letterbox, first time deliveries of non-letterbox items are likely to fail in more than 20% of cases, resulting in packages being returned to the transporter's depot for redelivery on a separate occasion, or collection by the consumer.
A new IMRG research report by Snow Valley - 'E-RETAIL DELIVERY IN THE UK' - published today, highlights the causes of the delivery service problems and inconsistencies that online shoppers encounter. Of 100 prominent online retailers' sites reviewed:
- 80% did not enable the customer to provide delivery instructions;
- 46% offered no delivery time options;
- 75% did not let customer choose a delivery date or offer Saturday delivery;
- 26% made the customer register / log-in before delivery cost was shown;
- 54% did not make clear if a signature would be required.
The IMRG Delivery Charter is being developed as a subset and extension of the ISIS (Internet Shopping Is Safe) Code of Practice for e-Commerce. The first ISIS Code (then known as the IMRG Code) was introduced in 1997. Since then, IMRG Members have proactively taken the lead in developing self-regulatory mechanisms to assist in providing consistent, manageable, effective and fair protection for e-retail stakeholders inside the broader legislative context. The ISIS Trust Scheme was expanded in 2000 as a merchant accreditation scheme; ISIS-accredited merchants now account for two thirds of UK e-retail sales:http://www.InternetShoppingIsSafe.co.uk
The key purpose of the IMRG Delivery Charter is to provide an easy to implement and monitored framework and a standard set of commitments for online shopping delivery stakeholders. It's standards establish a minimum set of guidelines whilst encouraging stakeholders to retain or implement provisions that generate additional services and trading protection for their stakeholders.
The IMRG Delivery Forum which steers the Charter development work was set up in June 2004 to address e-retail fulfilment issues. It is currently comprised of these leading merchants, transporters and facilitators: ANC, ARCADIA, AXIDA, BT DIRECT / BT RETAIL, CJ BOOKS, COLLECTPOINT, COMET, DABS.COM, DHL, HOME DELIVERY NETWORK (BUSINESS EXPRESS / REALITY), IFORCE, ITIM, KELKOO, LYNX, METAPACK, PARCELFORCE, PARCELNET, REDCATS, ROYAL MAIL, SCREWFIX, SEEK.NET, THREETHINK, ZENDOR.
"E-trading stakeholder protection is indispensable in building confidence and establishing a more balanced relationship and understanding between the trading parties," commented Colum Joyce, formerly Head of Global e-Business Strategy, DHL, who is leading the IMRG Delivery Charter development programme. "The electronic marketplace requires an integrated approach to stakeholder protection as part of a transparent and predictable legal and self-regulatory framework for electronic commerce. Inconsistent and inappropriate stakeholder policies impede the growth of electronic commerce, and as such, stakeholder protection issues are addressed most effectively through consultation, coordination, agreement, monitoring and self-regulation."
"The net commercial benefit of improving delivery is potentially very significant," said Andrew Starkey, lead analyst for the IMRG Delivery Charter development programme, whose previous roles included Divisional Director, Royal Mail, and Sales and Marketing Director, Collectpoint. "Our research to date indicates that up to 50% of merchants' distribution budgets could be recovered from avoided costs and increased revenues by simply using enhanced solutions that already exist and by better explaining delivery options to their customers."
As the IMRG Delivery Charter development programme moves forward, sub-charters for Consumers, Merchants and Transporters will be developed that describe their specific roles and responsibilities, together with a range of resources that help businesses plan, develop, optimise and promote their delivery solutions. One element will be a solutions matrix detailing all the services and options that transporters and co-suppliers provide.
RESOURCES (available on request):
• Internet Shopping Is Safe logo (JPEG)
• 'E-RETAIL DELIVERY IN THE UK' - an IMRG research report by Snow Valley (PDF)
• IMRG Delivery Charter Overview and Draft Content V0.2 (PDF).
ABOUT IMRG: IMRG (Interactive Media In Retail Group), formed in 1990, is the industry body serving e-retail: www.imrg.org
CONTACT: James Roper, IMRG +44 (0) 20 7829 8376 / delivery@imrg.org / http://www.imrg.org/