Home delivery has come a long way since the birth of the internet. Something that was once a novelty has now become commonplace. In the modern era, millions of packages are being dispatched and received in the UK every day. There’s a complex and elaborate series of systems in place to ensure that this keeps happening. After all, customers have come to expect next-day delivery whenever they place an order. In some cases, they’ve come to expect same-day delivery – or, at least, the opportunity to pay for it.
So, what are the advantages for businesses that offer same-day delivery?
Top benefits of same-day delivery
Customers who are able to benefit from same-day delivery will be more satisfied. They’ll have an immediate demand fulfilled, and as a consequence may come to trust your business with more custom in the future. I’ll allow you to retain customers, which is a far more powerful thing than winning over new ones, and it’ll give you a major competitive advantage over other equivalent businesses which don’t offer same-day delivery. After all, even for customers who don’t actually use the same-day service, the idea that it’s there can provide reassurance that this is a business worth taking seriously.
It’s becoming a must
Of course, in an online environment where every retailer is able to offer a given service, you’ll put yourself at a disadvantage if you don’t offer it. This the situation faced by online retailers today. If you’re the last one to offer same-day delivery, then you might risk losing custom to your competitors. It’s much more difficult to win these customers back than it is to offer them the service they’re looking for, and thereby retain them in the first place.
Customers consider it important
All of this rests on the assumption that customers value same-day delivery. When you look at consumer behaviour, and polling data, this turns out to be a fair assumption. Much of the recent growth in same-day delivery has been driven by the lockdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since many of us were unable to go out and get the things we needed in a hurry, we were forced to resort to same-day delivery. The industry rushed to meet this demand, and in the process developed the systems required to deliver consistently on the same day, even after the pandemic fizzled out.
