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Last year’s consolidation
of the UK express industry has been continued through the closure of a
number of other firms, most notably Geodis United Distribution as well as
through extensions of partnerships between UK parcels carriers and foreign
post offices. More consolidation is expected to take place in the industry
where express operators are focusing on high yielding customers and high
growth segments. At the moment attention has shifted towards the
international and B2C segments.
More respondents than in last year’s 'UK Domestic Parcels Distribution
Survey' had used more than one carrier for UK delivery over the last
twelve months. Price and the need for different carriers offering
different service options confirms that the UK market remains very
fragmented with a large number of carriers vying for the business of a
limited number of customers.
Now in its fourth phase, 'The UK Domestic Parcels Distribution Survey' is
a survey of more than 300 key users of express parcels services, each
sending a minimum of 100 parcels a month to UK addresses. By interviewing
in depth and at the appropriate level, Triangle has been able to ascertain
not only data pertaining to the patterns of usage of express parcels
carriers, but also customer perceptions of the levels of performance of
the carriers they choose to use.
The fact that different customers have different requirements of their
express carriers provides opportunities for service differentiation
between competing parcels companies. Indeed, the survey found that the
most widely used carriers were not necessarily the most reliable or
customer oriented and that the companies whose users rated them highest
for service or image were not perceived to be the cheapest. The report
offers an overview of a large number of performance criteria comparing the
UK’s 16 major carriers.
Given the very high investment required to acquire new customers, it is
obviously of key importance for parcels carriers to hold on to these won
accounts. To investigate this Triangle specifically asked the sample about
their decisions to stop using express carriers. 21% of respondents had
deliberately stopped using one or more carriers in the last year and the
average customer churn for individual carriers was found to be 13%, which
marks a significant increase on last year’s findings pointing towards a
high level of replacement and/or respondents trying out more carriers. The
survey reveals some remarkable changes in individual companies’ customer
turnover.
Reliability issues were discovered to be the cause of most of these
defections although the survey also identified that one in two users would
change carrier to take advantage of a reduction in price of 15% or less.
In general, the report shows comparisons between the carriers for a wide
range of topics and provides background analysis of the reasons for these
differences behind the perception through detailed analysis of individual
respondents’ answers.
The UK Domestic Parcels Distribution Survey is available to purchase as an
86 page report in paper format. Using its sophisticated data analysis
tools and drawing on three previous years of reporting Triangle can also
provide trend analysis for specific groups of users according to, for
example, carriers used or number of parcels sent. |
