Nearly 12% of Holiday Gifts Were Not Delivered On Time

Almost 12% of ecommerce orders fulfilled by retailers by their planned on-time-for-Christmas cutoff date did not reach the recipient by Dec. 25, according to the results of Multichannel Merchant’s 2014 MCM Outlook survey.

Although an average 11.6% of 2014 MCM Outlook survey respondents said orders fulfilled by the cutoff date were delivered late, it does not appear to be the result of shippers pushing that last-chance offer as close as possible to Christmas. According to the 2014 MCM Outlook survey results, 29.2% of merchants had an on-time-for-Christmas cutoff date of Dec. 17 in 2013.

[Click here to read and download Multichannel Merchant’s executive summary on Holiday 2014 Preparations.]

Dec. 20, the Friday before Christmas, was the second most-popular planned on-time-for-Christmas cutoff date. More than 16% of 2014 MCM Outlook survey respondents said they chose that as their cutoff date.

“After the 2013 holiday season, shippers told us there were carrier disruptions throughout the month of December,” said Multichannel Merchant Managing Editor Tim Parry. “Ecommerce volume exceeded carrier capacity, and the carriers and shippers were not on the same page with their communications.”

While the 11.6% average seems to be high, nearly three-fourth (71%) of 2014 MCM Outlook survey respondents said between 0% and 4% of orders fulfilled by their planned on-time-for-Christmas cutoff date did not reach the recipient by Dec. 25.

[Holiday shipping will be discussed at Operations Summit 2014, powered by Multichannel Merchant, April 22-24 in Indianapolis. Click here to register.]

But 7.9% of 2014 MCM Outlook survey respondents said between 85% and 100% of orders fulfilled by their planned cut-off date arrived late for Christmas. Of those respondents, 40% had a planned on-time-for-Christmas cutoff date of Dec. 17, and 30% set theirs for Dec. 20.

Multichannel Merchant’s MCM Outlook 2014 survey was fielded from Feb. 10 to March 10, 2014, and drew 1,281 respondents. Of those respondents, 470 identified themselves as a merchant or a retailer. The full MCM Outlook 2014 report on Operations and Fulfillment will be released in conjunction with Multichannel Merchant’s Operations Summit, which will be held April 22 to 24 in Indianapolis.

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