Ecommerce Delivery Timeslots "Critical" According to New Postcode Anywhere Survey

WORCESTER, England, August 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

E-tailers mustn't forget fulfilment this Christmas, says ecommerce optimisation specialist

Nearly two-thirds of consumers rate timed deliveries as important to their online shopping experience, according to a new study by Worcester-based software and services company Postcode Anywhere.

The survey of 1,000 UK consumers found that 64% rate delivery slots as "important" or "very important" when shopping for goods online.

It also revealed a slight disparity in the online buying process between the sexes: of the 35% of respondents who gave timeslots the highest score of "very important," a slim majority were women (54%). Conversely, of those polled who said timeslots were "not important," the majority were men (58%).

Postcode Anywhere's managing director Guy Mucklow said: "The one thing we can clearly take away from this study is how critical it is to get deliveries right. In ecommerce, it can be all-too easy to focus only on making your website more efficient, while leaving the actual delivery of your goods in the hands of the Gods.

"But the buying process doesn't finish when the customer leaves your website. It ends when the customer has received their product, and more importantly, is happy with what they've ordered and the service they've received.

"Even if your delivery processes are fast, it may not be enough. Receiving a missed delivery slip instead of the goods you ordered can seem more of a taunt than an assurance that the driver got there while you were out. Of course, these issues become even more important now the industry is gearing up for the Christmas rush.

"So what can e-tailers do? I'd advise them to take a good look at the market and see where they can adopt practices that improve their operations. For our part, we do have a possible solution.

"At Postcode Anywhere we're committed to making ecommerce easier and more profitable - we quite literally made our name offering the automatic address look-up you'll find in website forms across the globe. Now we're using postcodes to take a closer look at the other end of the process, which is where our delivery scheduling software Route Optimiser comes in.

"As with all our services, the software operates via the internet to eliminate the need for updates and drastically reduce the cost of operation - finally making delivery optimisation and scheduling viable and more reliable for any company which makes its own deliveries.

"By automatically re-ordering delivery points into a faster, more efficient route, it cuts down on the time it takes to plan deliveries and the fuel cost of making them. But perhaps more crucially in light of the survey, it schedules delivery windows so your customers know when to expect you."

Parshotam Showan, managing director of electrical store SonicDirect.co.uk, has been using Route Optimiser for over a year. He said: "Our level of service improved greatly after just one day using Route Optimiser. Suddenly we could give our customers two-hour delivery windows. Now they have to spend less time waiting for their deliveries. Our customers love it."

The survey polled 1,000 UK consumers across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Of the 1,000 respondents, 35% rated timed deliveries as "very important" and 29% as "important," with 14% rating them "not important." 22% of respondents rated timed deliveries as "neither important nor unimportant." The full results of the rest of the survey will be released in the run-up to Christmas.

To find out more about Postcode Anywhere's range of software and services for ecommerce, see http://www.postcodeanywhere.com. For more details about the browser-based delivery scheduling and optimisation service Route Optimiser, and to get your first route optimised for free, visit http://www.routeoptimiser.com. The service is suitable for the UK, Europe and the US.

Notes for editors

About Postcode Anywhere & Route Optimiser

Postcode Anywhere supplies software and services which improve the day-to-day operations of over 8,000 organisations worldwide. Best known as a provider of address auto-fill and verification software, the company offers a range of data-driven services, including route planning, customer profiling and bank account validation. It is now the fastest-growing reseller of Royal Mail's Postcode Address File (PAF®) and the market leader for online address auto-fill. A multi-award-winning organisation, it has also appeared in Deloitte's European fast-growth technology company list for three years running. For more information about Postcode Anywhere, please visit http://www.postcodeanywhere.com. Route Optimiser is a UK/US/European route scheduling service from Postcode Anywhere. For more information about Route Optimiser, please visit http://www.routeoptimiser.com.

Recent Awards and Recognition for Postcode Anywhere

• Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA 2008/9, 2009/10 & 2010/11
• Red Herring Top 100 Europe - 2010
• Best Small IT Supplier of the Year - UK IT Industry Awards (finalist) - 2009
• Dell Small Business Excellence Award (UK finalist) - 2009
• Small-Medium Sized Business of the Year (regional finalist) - National Business Awards 2009
• Orange Best Use of Technology (Midlands) - 2008 National Business Awards
• Growth Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
• Small Business of the Year - Chamber Awards 2008
• Customer Service Team of the Year (finalist) - National Customer Services Awards 2008

Media contact for Postcode Anywhere & Route Optimiser
Jim Williams - PR Manager
jim@postcodeanywhere.com
+44(0)1905-888-562
Press centres at: http://www.postcodeanywhere.com/press
http://www.routeoptimiser.com/ROPressCentre