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Delivering The Goods - ERT Weekly 2005
 

With some big retail names on its client list, MetaPack aims to improve delivery services. Simon King reports.

Metapack, the delivery management firm, is targeting small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) after developing a stronghold among larger retailers. The company, which boasts that it helps to successfully deliver more than 15 million parcels a year, already has an impressive client list, with names such as the Dixons Group, Comet, B&Q, Boots and John Lewis on its books.

Metapack was started with the aim of improving direct selling and home delivery services, by providing a choice of delivery options that boosted customer satisfaction and reduced operating costs.

OPPORTUNITY
The company, realising that there was a big opportunity to improve fulfilment, from the initial order stage to the final delivery, secured funding at the beginning of 2000.

Patrick Wall, Metapack’s chief executive, said: “It was at the start of the dotcom era, we raised £1 million of funding on the back of a 25-page Powerpoint presentation.” 

Boots, the high street chain, was the company’s first client and by early 2001, Metapack had a product in place, which, four years on, Mr Wall predictably believes is the best online delivery package he has seen in the marketplace. Today, Mr Wall claims that his company has secured work with “50 per cent of the biggest retailers in the UK”.

Mr Wall said that his company’s growth, over a relatively short period of trading, was down to the fact that Metapack classes itself as “a retail specialist”. He said: “We are focused, to do the job properly and to do this, there is a need to know the industry well. Everything we do is retail.”

Not one to rest on his laurels, Mr Wall, is also looking to work with more national retailers, as well as expanding into the SME arena, which it has not yet tapped into. Mr Wall said: “Whether customers buy from a company’s website, catalogue, store, or by phone or mail order, their expectations of an efficient and successful home delivery are the same.

“Customers have become more discerning in recent years and now look for convenient delivery options that suit their lifestyle. “If you can’t offer a range of delivery times and dates, as well as an effective returns process, you could face losing out to other retailers.”

Mr Wall points out that the online channel has inherited the somewhat archaic delivery practices of the catalogue industry. The problem with this, he said, is that the profile of customers is very different: between 60 and 70 per cent of internet shoppers are not at home during the day, for example.

Websites are not helping matters either, although Mr Wall praised the online grocers for their convenient delivery options.

Claiming that the grocers are “setting the standards for the industry”, he pointed out that non-food retailers – including electrical websites – were offering “insufficient convenient delivery options”.

TWO-HOUR WINDOW
Metapack deals with 16 carriers in the UK and Mr Wall claims that the way these companies operate will change over time as carriers make more drops. Like the grocery retailers, some carriers will offer two-hour windows for product delivery, which will suit the busy lifestyle of today’s demanding consumers.

Metapack is also, at the request of existing clients, talking to leading suppliers about its direct dispatch module, which would see product shipped directly from the supplier to the end user. Mr Wall said: “The emphasis is on providing the same standards and transparency of delivery, irrespective of where the order was made, whether through a store, online or mail order and where it was supplied from, whether from a store, warehouse or directly from the manufacturer.”


Online Limitations
According to Metapack’s delivery excellence survey of 130 top websites, many online retailers have yet to move away from the “catalogue era”. The survey found that websites still offer very limited options that place the emphasis on cost over convenience. 

• Sixty per cent of retailers have only one delivery option, and a further 20 per cent have just two; 
• The most common service is an unspecified delivery window, such as ‘three to five working days’;
• Only one in 10 retailers allows the customer to choose a date for delivery.

Metapack’s chief executive Patrick Wall said: “To meet the needs of the widest range of customers, delivery services offered by online retailers should include economy services with wide time windows, premium services with narrow time windows, and options such as nominated day, morning, evening and weekend delivery.”

Source: ERTWeekly.com - July 2005

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