Our most recent report looked into the range of delivery services that each of the UK’s top retailers offer, which carrier/s they each use to provide them and what the overall patterns in usage were.
As expected, Royal Mail is the most widely-used carrier and is also the most used economy delivery provider. It is followed by DPD – which leads in express services – Hermes and Yodel. Despite Hermes and Yodel traditionally being seen as having a focus on economy delivery, they now both have strong positions in express / next-day.
As can be seen in the chart above, while all retailers offer standard or economy delivery, a significant proportion (13%) do not offer next day delivery.
Although it is now offered by major retailers like Amazon and Argos, same-day delivery remains a niche service, offered by just 21 of the 444 retailers we surveyed. CitySprint serves the largest number of retail clients, through its ‘On the dot’ delivery service, with other networks – such as Gophr, Paack and Brisqq also present – alongside in-house provision
Click and collect is now offered by a majority of top retailers. 48% of retailers offer the service via their own store networks with 33% using third party parcel shop and locker networks such as Collect+, Doddle or InPost and 18% using both.
48% of the retailers we surveyed now offer international delivery. The most-used carriers for this service include DHL followed by DPD – which owns international specialist wnDirect and is part of the French postal operator, La Poste, and Hermes – which has increased its focus on international in the last couple of years.
For obvious reasons, overall penetration of two-man delivery is relatively low. The largest operators are ArrowXL and Panther, but the segment is fragmented with many smaller operators and a significant level of in-house provision.
The report, Top UK retailers: delivery services and carriers used – 2018, looks at overall patterns in usage and includes a database of the services offered by each retailer in the InternetRetailing UK Top500 and which carrier/s it uses to provide them.
