Snow Valley's annual reports on Delivery and Returns & Refunds are warmly welcomed by the industry every year.
The research provides an extremely detailed breakdown of the delivery and returns and refunds processes used by the UK's leading online retailers and are therefore a useful benchmarking tool for the e-commerce market.
The 2008 research will begin in July. Between now and July 1st we welcome suggestions on what else should be covered in our research. If you would like to add a question, either for inclusion in the report or for your exclusive use, please e-mail sarah.clelland@snowvalley.com
The questions already included in our research:
Delivery Report 2007
1. How many delivery time options did the retailer provide?
2. Where no delivery options were provided, what was the timeframe?
3. Was it possible to choose a specific date for delivery?
4. Was it possible to choose a specific time of day for delivery?
5. Was it possible to choose Saturday delivery?
6. What was the lowest delivery charge on offer?
7. Did the retailer offer free delivery above a certain value threshold?
8. Was it mandatory for the order to be delivered to the billing address?
9. Was it possible to split the order across multiple delivery addresses?
10. Did the retailer specify a time by which the order had to be placed?
11. Was it possible to add special delivery instructions?
12. Did the retailer offer any online/in-store services?
13. Could the retailer deliver to overseas addresses?
14. Could the retailer offer gift wrapping and message services?
15. On the homepage, where were the links to the delivery info page?
16. What terminology was used to link to the delivery info page?
17. When did the customer first see the delivery charge of their order?
18. Did the retailer offer online order tracking?
19. How many e-mails did the customer receive once they placed an order?
20. Was a signature required and did the retailer make this clear?
21. How many working days did it take for the goods to be delivered?
22. Did the delivery arrive within the given timeframe?
23. How many retailers sent marketing e-mails following our purchase?
24. How many offered free delivery in their e-mail marketing?
25. How many had set up free delivery promotion especially for the e-mail?
26. How frequently did the retailers run the free delivery promotion?
27. What type of delivery promotions were offered?
Returns and Refunds Report 2007
1. What returns method options were offered to the customer?
2. What was the procedure for returning goods by post?
3. What was the procedure for returning goods by courier?
4. What was the procedure for returning goods bought online to a store?
5. Who covered the cost of returning the goods to the retailer
6. Did the retailer refund the original delivery charge?
7. In total, which costs did the retailer cover?
8. How long did the customer have to return any unwanted goods?
9. Where was the link to returns information on the website homepage?
10. What terms were used to link to the returns info from the homepage?
11. Did the delivery include clear returns instructions?
12. Was the refund made without the customer having to follow it up?
13. Where there was no follow-up, how long did the refund take?
14. What happened when no refund was made and a call was needed?
15. Did the customer get notification that the refund had been processed?