When it comes to delivery, customers can feel worried about being at home for their parcels arriving, or not receiving it and missing out. Many delivery management software and logistics companies use time slot strategies to help their customers feel assured in the whereabouts of their deliveries, so they can keep track and make sure they’re at home when it arrives.
In our consumer home delivery report with IMRG and Maru, we asked 1,000 respondents what they thought about delivery time slots. Our results to the question ‘would you be happy to pay for a service where you could specify a time slot?’ were originally very positive back in 2009, however, as time has gone on, less and less people agree that they would. One reason for this could be that there’s still appetite for delivery slots, but customers are less willing to pay for it. As shoppers have become accustomed to free delivery, or delivery offers, they may have come to expect a slot for free.
Would you be happy to pay for a delivery service where you could specify the time slot?
(Source: Maru, nShift and IMRG Home Delivery Report)
When it comes to the length of the delivery slot itself, the results showed us that the shorter the better. Most people were willing to wait within 2 hours of their timeslot, whilst the second most popular option was 1 hour. Very few people said they’d be willing to wait for more than 4 hours. This is once again a reflection of customers becoming accustomed to quick delivery, within a neatly compartmentalized time slot. The pressure is on for parcel delivery management systems, as well as carriers.
If you could specify a delivery time slot what would you consider an acceptable time slot?
(Source: Maru, nShift and IMRG Home Delivery Report)
Overall, it seems as though more people are expecting to be alerted of a delivery slot as part of standard practice. Furthermore, the majority of people have said, consistently, that they would only be willing to pay £1-2 for the service of selecting the time slot themselves – as shown in the graph below.
How much would you be willing to pay to specify the time slot?
(Source: Maru, nShift and IMRG Home Delivery Report)
We can conclude that most customers seem to expect, or hope for, the option to find out when their delivery is coming (usually between 2 hour time slots) for free. However, there could be a potential market for customers to also pay roughly £2 to select this timeslot themselves, as almost half of those asked would be willing to. At nShift, we enable you to offer a wide range of convenient delivery options in your online checkout allowing you to meet customer expectations and turn baskets into sales.