Study: Holiday delivery performance worsens

Delivery performance in the first half of December may land many providers on the naughty list.

According to analysis of what more than 130,000 shoppers said in surveys about on-time deliveries of their full orders between Dec. 1 - Dec. 15 by Bizrate Insights, a division of Connexity, time is not on their side.

Bizrate Insights data indicated on-time delivery rate went from 93.3% on Tuesday, Dec. 1 to 89.9% on Tuesday, Dec. 15. There were small day-over-day spikes in on-time delivery rate on Saturday, Dec. 5, Tuesday, Dec 8 and Friday Dec. 11.

Otherwise, the rate steadily declined every day in the period, with an especially sharp drop occurring Saturday, Dec. 12 when the rate dipped to a little more than 90% and then stayed flat before continuing downward on Monday, Dec. 14 and Tuesday, Dec. 15.

Previously, Bizrate Insights released data indicating on-time delivery rate went from 93.3% on Tuesday, Dec. 1 to less than 91.5% on Thursday, Dec. 10.

“Even though retailers and carriers all expected e-commerce growth this year over last year, on-time delivery – as defined by the customer – is down 1.7% on Dec. 15, 2015 from the same date last year,” said Hayley Silver, VP of Bizrate Insights. “Retailers and carriers started stronger in December 2015 over 2014, but then dropped under the weight of the holiday orders. Furthermore, at the time these orders were placed, many retailers had not adjusted customer expectations of when they would receive their orders.”

In addition, customers rating their on-time delivery satisfaction a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale with on-time delivery is decreasing at nearly twice the rate of reported on-time deliveries (-6.3% compared to -3.7%) since Dec. 1, 2015. However average satisfaction with on-time delivery is decreasing at a slightly lower rate (-3.1% versus -3.7%), possibly indicating some consumer forgiveness or resetting of their own expectations.