Delivering info about deliveries

When I searched for "Royal Mail" and "strike" this afternoon, Google News delivered "about" 2,368 news stories as results. (I love how Google News won't pin itself down to a specific number of stories but instead feels the need to qualify the number with "about".) A sampling of the headlines: "Royal Mail national strike would cause havoc with Christmas post" (The Telegraph); "Firms' fears over post strike threat" (Scunthorpe Telegraph); "Prepare for disruption" (Burton Mail); "The last post" (The Independent).

I figured that lots of direct sellers would be responding to the fearsome headlines with messages on their websites reassuring customers that even in the case of a national strike, their orders would be delivered on time.

Once again, I figured wrong.

Of the 20 ecommerce sites, both b-to-b and b-to-c, I visited, only four had some sort of disclaimer on their home page.

Office supplies cataloguer/retailer Staples placed its message front and centre, just below its logo: "Your order will not be affected by any Royal Mail strike action. For your peace of mind, remember that your order is NOT delivered by Royal Mail and will continue to be delivered next day as usual."

On the other three websites, the messages appeared below the fold. Even so, they were difficult to miss. Fashion etailer Asos went with a bold albeit somewhat ungrammatical "Royal Mail Strikes Delivery Unaffected". Fellow apparel merchant Cotton Traders, which caters to an older audience, posted a genteel "For complete confidence your order will be delivered by private courier". And general merchandiser Littlewoods tied its message to a reminder that "Standard delivery is free on all orders. Don't forget... our deliveries are not affected by any postal strikes".

So of my informal survey, 20 percent of the websites were addressing what is undoubtedly a concern of many consumers. As for the other 16 websites, several of them (Amazon.co.uk, Marks & Spencer, and Liberty) prominently promoted free shipping offers, but they didn't reassure shoppers that the orders would actually arrive. For the others, it was business as usual.

Some of these companies may still be scrambling for delivery alternatives and therefore can't promise uninterrupted service. But department store John Lewis issued a statement this week stating that it has switched its parcel deliveries to other carriers--so why not post this info on its website?

Maybe John Lewis and some of the others are afraid that by mentioning the strikes on their sites, they're planting a fear in the minds of consumers and that therefore the less said the better. Or maybe they feel it's too early to start pounding the message.

A former editor of mine said that when writing a feature or a presentation, you should "tell the audience what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them". In other words, you can't repeat your message too early or too often. For consumers who are already a bit hesitant about parting with their hard-earned money, it's not too early to reassure them that they'll actually receive the merchandise they've opted to spring for.--SC

Introducing the Catalogue Log

What percentage of catalogues would you say promoted some sort of sale or discount on their covers? If you guessed slightly more than one-third, you’re correct. Of the 520 consumer and business catalogues logged by Catalogue e-business during the first five months of the year, 191 of them—36.7 percent—touted price cuts loud and clear. A subset of these limited their discounts to first-time customers (for instance, promotional products merchant 4imprint).

Not surprisingly, sales and discounts were the most popular promotions offered by mailers—but not the only ones. Fifty-eight of the catalogues, or 11.2 percent, promised some sort of free delivery. Sometimes this was a blanket offer, though just as frequently it was tied to a spending threshold or restricted to online orders (or in the case of crafts merchant Baker Ross’s summer catalogue, both).

Nearly as popular among the catalogues tracked was a free gift with purchase; 57 catalogues, or 11 percent, offered this. Comparatively few (2.1 percent) had a prize draw of some sort, and even fewer (1.3 percent) tried a buy-one-get-one-free promotion.

And some cataloguers figured that if one promotion was good, two (or more) would be even better. Cotton Traders, for instance, frequently promoted a price cut on a particular product (such as £19.99 sweats for just £9.99 in its summer catalogue) as well as a prize draw for £25,000. Another apparel catalogue, Kaleidoscope, promoted on its April cover discounts of up to 20 percent, plus a free cutlery set for those placing their first order. A premier customer edition of office supplies cataloguer Neat Ideas promised savings of up to 60 percent plus buy-one-get-one-free on certain items plus free gifts with purchase. And computer company Dell consistently promised discounts and free P&P.

Contrary to our expectations, January was not the month with the most price promotions. (See chart above; click on image to enlarge.) Although 35.4 percent of the catalogues logged in January advertised price cuts and discounts, in May that rose to 42.6 percent. Perhaps merchants had cut back their inventories prior to Christmas and therefore had less to liquidate, though that wouldn’t explain the increase in price reductions in May. Meanwhile, the percentage of catalogues offering free P&P peaked in April, at a full 20 percent, compared with just 7.3 percent in February and 9 percent in March.

As you can imagine, there are a number of ways to slice and dice the copious data we've collected. That's why we'll be analysing on a monthly basis, beginning with the June catalogues, the offers that make their way through our mail slot. We're calling it the Catalogue e-business Catalogue Log, for lack of anything catchier. But I suspect that the trends the data will reveal will be catchy enough.--SC