Retailers at mercy of parcel carriers need to take control

21 October, 2002 Warehouse and Logistics News 

"The announcement that carriers Parcel Force and Reality are radically rationalising their capacity and services highlights how vulnerable companies have become to upheaval in the carrier market, there is a real threat of unprecedented customer dissatisfaction this Christmas peak." Iain Beveridge, Operations Director at fulfilment specialists, MetaPack.

The situation has become so critical that some parcel carriers have already imposed a moratorium on new business; Most of the larger players have had to redistribute their standard outbound traffic previously with Parcelforce. For instance, N Brown has shifted to Business Express and Securicor, while Lakeland Ltd; has moved to Hermes. Some retailers have been forced to upgrade to premium services until Christmas. Which will in turn force them to pass on higher costs to their customers. Other retailers have been left to juggle with a continuity issue, exposing the business to a potential revenue shortfall. Even worse, some operations have been unable to make alternative arrangement necessary to meet their commitments to their customers.

Retailers have no desire to compromise the service they face to customers or to be held to ransom by carriers. Boots Wellbeing.com uses an alternative solution - multi carrier management, enabling it to switch between carriers according to the requirements of each consignment. 

Mark Dearnley, Chief Operation Officer for Boots Wellbeing, the on-line health and beauty site, comments "At Boots Wellbeing.com we have built our customer offer around a multi carrier strategy. This allows us to offer a range of delivery options to our customers: including next day, named day and a standard 5-day service. These services are optimised based on the delivery postcode and products in the order. During periods when either we or the carriers have operational challenges, we are able to move parcels between services and carriers to ensure that out customers always get what they asked for. This capability is very important to us as we grow our business."

By providing a single point of integration to multiple carriers MetaPack's solution gives these companies an ongoing contingency that enables back up carriers to be switched on in moments.

Costs are kept low by automatically routing product through to the most appropriate carriers.

The solution also provides increased convenience to the end user by providing a wider range of delivery options and management information to improve carrier's services. The option to manage services themselves or engage MetaPack's skills in support.

James Roper, chief executive for IMRG the industry body for global e-retailing, comments on the news, "Multichannel retail is stressing the carrier market in new ways. This is largely because of Internet shoppers' high expectations for speed, convenience and flexibility, MetaPack's multi carrier facilitation has become an important weapon in the e-retailer's armoury, because it provides the access to a broad spectrum of fulfilment possibilities that can be applied on a case-by-case fitness for propose basis. With the current disarray being displayed by many carriers, MetaPack also offers e-retailers crucial assurance of continuity of fulfilment services throughout the critical Christmas shopping season."

Business Express' Colin Middlemiss also comments on the news. "Business Express welcomes the opportunity to work with MetaPack in a multi carrier environment. With 30 years experience as a home shopping distribution specialist we provide a consistent quality service, cost effectively. In a multi carrier environment we are only asked to carry traffic, which is complementary to our core business, enabling us to maintain high quality services. Other carriers will handle products not suited to the automated sortation processes within our network."