Press pounce on Yodel after delay warning

Yodel has hit the headlines after warning that home deliveries could be delayed by up to 72 hours, as it was deferring collections from retailers by up to 48 hours to allow it to clear a backlog of parcels in the network.

In a statement, Yodel said the Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions had resulted in parcel volumes 26 per cent higher than the forecasts from its retail customers. At the beginning of November it had forecast that deliveries this Christmas would be 15 per cent higher that 2013.

The Daily Mail said: “Yodel latest courier firm to be hit by Christmas delays”, while the headline in the Financial Times was: “Parcels surge hits Christmas deliveries”.

Many retailers have been overwhelmed by online demand resulting from the pre-Christmas promotions. Retailers that have reporting delays in their online services include Marks & Spencer, Argos, Tesco, Waterstones and River Island.

IMRG, the trade association for online retail, has estimated that the value of online sales on Black Friday was about £810 million – well about its original estimate of £555.5m.

And sales on Cyber Monday were valued at £720m – again well up on the £650m originally estimated.

Yodel said it expected deliveries to be back to normal by today (Monday). “We are working closely with our clients on their forecasted parcel volumes for the coming weeks, based on this we are confident that the action we are taking will ensure that normal service is resumed after the weekend.”

In the run-up the Christmas, Yodel said it was recruiting 5,000 part- and full-time staff across the UK. It also procured 13 additional sites to aid the increase in parcel volumes.

Despite the delays being experienced by some retailers and delivery firms in the wake of Black Friday, Clipper reported that despite experiencing its busiest ever period – with Christmas volumes up 100 per cent year-on-year – it had achieved a 100 per cent success rate in despatching orders within their allotted time-frame.

Sean Fahey, Clipper CIO, said: „We received a tremendous uplift in the volume of orders, well in excess of forecast, and I am delighted that our systems and operational teams achieved service levels to despatch all items on time.”

Some retailers are already promoting Black Friday for next year – the Argos web site, for example, encourages customers to come back next year – 27th December 2015.

Source: logisticsmanager.com
Portal: logistik-express.com