UK parcel order volumes have risen 19.2 per cent year-on-year to 920m packages, higher than analyst‘s forecasts, according to the IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index April 2014.
Andrew Starkey, Head of e-Logistics at IMRG, said this year‘s March increase is more pronounced than in 2013.
“Should this growth be maintained, 2014 year-end volumes for dispatches from UK e-retailers (excluding ‘store fulfilled‘ Click and Collect) would be in the region of 888 million orders and 920 million packages,” he said.
The growth of multi-channel has meant that retailers are assessing their existing supply chain and many retailers have moved to automated service centres to fulfil consumer demand.
He added: “For domestic delivery, quality of service continues to hold up well both in terms of ‘late‘ and attempted (carded) delivery failure. If the current performance to date can be maintained then perhaps only 11% of deliveries will fail to live up to shoppers‘ expectations in 2014. However on current volume forecasts this could still be almost 100 million orders so there is still much work to be done.”
