As well as the well-documented impact of the extreme weather on
store footfall and total sales, parcel despatch and catalogue
mailings were also affected in the run up to Christmas.
Although most cataloguers had already sent out their crucial
pre-Christmas mailings, an industry source told Catalogue
e-business that many of his contacts had experienced lower
response rates for their later mailings-most likely caused by a
mail backlog.
At Flying Brands, the owner of Gardening Direct and Flying
Flowers, important catalogue mailings were disrupted by the snow,
fulfilment was hampered by the worst of the weather, and delivery
delays damaged the company’s perishable goods. As a result,
Flying Brands suffered a returns and replacements rate six times
higher than last year and much more than it had budgeted
for.
It was a similar story at N Brown, the company behind Julipa,
Premier Man, Simply Be, and Shoe Tailor. Although revenues at the
group rose 4.6 percent in the 19 weeks ended 8th January, growth
was dampened by the bad weather. Catalogues and customer
statements were caught up in the backlog in the first few weeks
of the new year, leading to lower than expected sales. N Brown,
however, remains optimistic that it can recoup some lost revenue
once the mailings arrive with customers.
To mitigate the impact of customers missing payments, N Brown
emailed its database in the first week of January to let
customers know of possible statement delays and advise on
alternative payment options.
For the smaller direct sellers, it was not so much a case of
catalogues not being delivered, but more of parcels not reaching
customers.
Clare Gradidge of homeware catalogue Scarlett Willow says she had
to arrange replacements to be sent to customers who still hadn’t
received their orders by 4th January. And a source said that he
knew of at least two businesses that had parcels stranded in
their warehouses over Christmas awaiting despatch for Scotland.
Couriers had stopped accepting orders for north of the English
border.
At envelope and mailing bag supplier Smarter Packaging, customer
service enquiries increased by 400 percent due to the extreme
weather conditions. Yet managing director Richard Smart says the
business was still able to increase sales by 19 percent during
the festive period.
While the snow certainly put extra pressure to deliver, Ben
Biscoe, managing director of glass jewellery etailer Fairyglass,
looks on the bright side, “[although] the snow caused a few
problems with delivery, it also meant customers did not venture
out to shop”. As a result, the business had its best online
sales performance to date-up 15 percent on last year.
Even cheerier news came from Naked Wines. According to head of
communications Francesca Krajewski, the business doubled sales
during the festive period and delivered 99.4 percent of all
orders as promised.
For more on the effects the snow had on retailers at Christmas
see the February cover story:
Snow woes hit retailers but stars shine through.
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