By Sadie Harriott
The effects of Brexit and Covid-19 have significantly changed consumer behaviour. During the pandemic, with everyone under instruction to stay at home as much as possible, use of online shopping rose dramatically. Takeaway food, grocery deliveries, and of course non-food products such as entertainment, all took centre stage at home, to while away those long lockdown hours.
Increasing demand, and newly emerging entrants into the transport and logistics sector, are driving intense competition. For instance, data from the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and KPMG, during February 2021, shows that online non-food sales rose by 82.2%, against a growth of 3.6% in February 2020.
Given the current supply-chain complications arising in Great Britain, with many shop shelves left bare, it seems likely that shoppers will continue to rely on online purchases to meet their needs. This remains even as the lockdown restrictions are lifted, and especially in the run-up to Christmas 2021, when HGV deliveries will come under even more pressure to deliver to time, with limited resources.
The demand is not set to reduce, so can the supply keep up?
To remain competitive, delivery and logistics organisations need to focus on satisfying customers and driving profitability by making deliveries quick and to time. This requires access to reliable addressing data, so that the properties and precise locations they are delivering to are known ahead of schedule, rather than after a package is expected. Here minute and granular detail is required for logistics companies to compete.
Because such data is a competitive advantage, it creates opportunities to increase more delivery slots, and further improve their own bottom lines. Without access to this crucial location data, organisations will find it difficult to accurately calculate success factors such as time- and cost-to-deliver. Without it, organisations are slow and often make mistakes resulting in frustrated drivers and customers, wasted time, increased costs, and poor service. This can also mean financial penalties for businesses, and ultimately, they find themselves falling behind innovative new players in a rapidly growing market.
So, much like an online order, it follows a set route:
- An addressing solution
- Intelligent routing
- Maximise drops
- Improve revenue and profits.
But this can only be achieved through the highly accurate, detailed, up-to-date and authoritative data provided in geospatial addressing products such as AddressBase.
The power of good data
Read our insight, 'Delivering in a logistics crisis', looking at why more and more people are turning to online shopping.