The Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG) says very few
e-tailers are getting it right. The consumers don't buy because
they don't know when goods will arrive; and the merchants don't
offer flexible delivery times because the transporters charge more
for these services than consumers will pay.
James Roper, CEO of IMRG, is out to fix the problem. "Twenty
percent of deliveries of items that don't fit through a letter box
fail first time because there's nobody home," he told OUT-LAW. He
puts the average cost of a failed delivery – including frustrating
calls to rearrange delivery, drivers taking goods away and
returning another day, and customers abandoning the merchant
100.
For the past eight years, the IMRG has tried to bring
transporters and merchants together to solve the problem with a
trust mark scheme, to be known as Internet Delivery Is
Safe. Arcadia, Comet, Dabs.com, Kelkoo and Screwfix are on
board, together with transporters including Royal Mail, DHL, Lynx
and Parcelforce.
The IMRG's primary aim is to get rid of avoidable waste.
According to Roper, 80% of sites ask no questions about delivery
and offer no options. His colleague on the project, Colum Joyce,
formerly DHL's Global e-Commerce Strategy Manager, describes home
delivery as "the sleeping policeman on the information
superhighway."
Their first target is for websites to start telling users more
about the delivery services already in place. Even if delivery will
be Monday-to-Friday, nine-to-five, Roper wants websites to
communicate this to their customers. "Just tell people what you
will do," he says.
Further improvements, he believes, will be iterative
developments.
The draft IMRG Delivery Charter, the cornerstone of the trust
mark scheme, is currently in Version 0.2. It covers more than just
telling customers what you do. It is a sub-set and extension of the
better-known ISIS Code of Practice for e-Commerce,
an existing merchant verification scheme that is visible on many
sites in the form of a blue badge with the words "Internet Shopping
Is Safe" and a picture of a credit card secured by a padlock.
The aim of the Delivery Charter and the Internet Delivery Is
Safe scheme is to protect the public and to support merchants and
transporters.
Some of the draft Charter's points address availability: if
goods are out of stock, remove them from the website, unless that
would be inconsistent with what the customer expects (e.g. if the
goods were also shown in a print catalogue) – in which case the
goods should be clearly marked on the website as unavailable.
It also addresses data flows, from consumer to merchant, from
merchant to transporter, and from transporter to consumer. The
merchant's or transporter's data protection and security policies
must be available for review from any data collection interface
screen, it says, and all data should be retained for a minimum of
one year.
It lists important features of the fulfilment contract that
should be negotiated between the merchant and transporter –
including the agreed timings for delivery, the required labelling,
format and placement on items for delivery, and the guarantees and
warranties.
It also sets out minimum information on delivery progress, to be
provided or to be available for viewing from the transporter to the
merchant and consumer, including the transporter's name and the
dates and times of pick up and delivery by the transporter.
The IMRG's objectives are to reduce the rate of first-time
failures by 50% within a year of the scheme's operation. This, he
says, would save £2.5 billion. The first applications of the new
scheme should become visible on participating sites from September,
according to Roper, just in time for this year's Christmas
shopping.
