Some 60 per cent of retailers now offer next-day delivery, while 25 per cent offer Saturday delivery, according to Snow Valley’s 2011 Online Delivery Report.
That’s up from 55 per cent last year, the report sponsored by MetaPack, said.
Nearly 70 per cent now offer at least two delivery options, including 17 per cent of respondents who offer delivery on a nominated day and 12 per cent who offer a nominated time.
The report traditionally only counts delivery services that are available to all customers, but as same-day delivery has started to increase it was included in the survey for the first time. Still, only nine retailers of the 253 surveyed (four per cent) offer same-day delivery and of those only one could provide the service to addresses outside London, and that was ASOS.
The average standard delivery charge falls at £4.17, while the most popular mode average charge used by 44 per cent of retailers was £3.95.
Some 13 per cent of retailers offer free delivery as standard on everything, the same percentage as the previous year. Free delivery over a certain order value is now available on an extra 36 per cent of sites with the most popular threshold being £50.
The mean average charge for nominated day delivery was £6.47, while Saturday delivery was the most expensive premium option with an average of £9.98.
Around 19 per cent of retailers now allow customers to collect from store, up from 15 per cent last year. Some 77 per cent allow customers to track their orders online, while four per cent provide a text message alert regarding delivery.
