One in six retailers to lose out on £1.2bn sales due to lack of fast shipping options

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Dec 21, 2017

Despite Britons expected to spend millions of pounds on last-minute Christmas presents, new research from Visualsoft has found that 17% of the UK’s top 240 retailers are still failing to offer fast delivery options.

Additionally, only 62% of Britain’s top retailers offer click and collect, despite the service becoming a must-have for 32% of consumers, while only 19% of retailers offer incentivised free delivery.

The lack of premium delivery options could cost retailers dearly, as online sales on 22 and 23 December totalled over £1.2 billion in 2016.

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Tim Johnson, chief sales officer at ecommerce and digital agency Visualsoft, said: “For the majority of retailers, December delivers the biggest revenue boost of the entire year. This is therefore a spending period that retailers cannot afford to get wrong – let alone miss out on completely.

“As online shopping becomes more widely used, so does the variety of needs and tastes it needs to accommodate. Failing to meet these expectations can be a costly mistake.”

According to Visualsoft, retailers can take full advantage of last-minute online shopping by addressing shoppers’ concerns that their orders will arrive on time.

“There are ways around the issue. For example, if retailers do not have chain of physical stores, they should look into click and collect through a network of collection points like Collect+. It's also worth incentivising spend with free premium delivery for the highest order values, as this will both build reassurance that a parcel will arrive on time and increase basket spend, too,” said Tim Johnson.