October 14 2007

IMRG: "The strike is destroying the industry"

James Roper, the IMRG's CEO, is quoted in the Telegraph as saying of the worst postal strike for 20 years that it "is destroying the industry. Our industry works on confidence and trust of the customers. The Royal Mail is the only doorstep delivery business in the UK."

"The uncertainty that this is bringing into the market place is a nightmare. It is particularly hard for small firms who do not have the means to engage a replacement carrier at short notice."

However, the uncertainty may work in favour of etailers if it brings forward customer orders since they're no longer blase about last minute deliveries.

Of course, since James' comments, the strike is ended however the resonances remain and are not pleasant for etailers.

Carriers have already been warning that the network lacks the capacity to handle the expected eCommerce volumes but etailers are all collectively hoping that...

• customers will order early (look out for incentives to order by 17 December to ensure Christmas delivery)
• when the crunch comes that smaller competitors will bear the brunt of the service failures.

Last year the shuffling of major contracts and some muscle-flexing by one of the global pure-plays (who will of course remain nameless - in the cowardly interest of our holding on to IT Towers!) meant that some other national names had service levels in the low 80%. This breached the agreed service levels and left many customers very disgruntled.

Ironically, then, some denting of customer confidence (complacency?) that they can order at 5pm on Christmas eve and get next day delivery before breakfast on Christmas Day may work in favour of etailers. Being able to warn customers to leave plenty of time, while reminding them of the outages will hopefully bring orders forward.

Time will tell. Make sure you tell us your views in the "Comments" thread below (all logged-in users may comment).

Ian Jindal

by Ian Jindal