Research carried out by a leading parcel and carrier manager suggests that a weekend spike in the number of customers ordering gifts online is likely to cause Mondays to be the busiest days for parcel deliveries between now and Christmas.
The study, done by Global Freight Solutions (GFS) shows that the number of items that are transported on a weekly basis throughout November and December is 21 percent higher than at any other point during the year. The report also goes on to show that during the Mondays of the month prior to December 25th, that percentage figure nearly doubles.
GFS found that the number of packages shipped on a Monday made up 27 percent of the total number of goods delivered across an entire week during the usual parcel delivery peak season
Simon Veale, Director of Global Freight Solutions, said the report revealed “a peak within a peak” and underlined the challenges that the season of giving can pose to retailers, with regards to meeting customer expectations and successfully managing their delivery capacity.
Veale went on to say, “It had previously been thought that the largest parcel volumes leading up to Christmas might be recorded later in the week because of the effect of so-called ‘Cyber Monday’, the day when it was believed consumers were most inclined to shop online. What we have discovered, though, shows that Monday is actually the busiest day of the week by far for processing internet orders placed over the weekend. That finding has tremendous implications for retailers trying to deliver an enormous amount of goods in a very short space of time.”.
Global Freight Solutions’ analysis of the pre-Christmas period in 2012 show that the parcel industry shifted approximately 4.25 million items a day – a number that is up on previous years, most likely due to the ever increasing number of people shopping online for their Christmas gifts. Other research released earlier in the year emphasised the level to which UK shoppers have taken to e-commerce. Over £81 billion was spent by Britons online during 2012, with over 10% of all purchases during December of that year being made via the internet.