Thursday 5 April 2018

Vampires will deliver

Well, he's saying it's a monster opportunity. He's saying that vampires will deliver. Christ! I hope he's right, but I've got a bad feeling about it. All it takes is for one customer to get bitten on the neck and then the whole business model will turn to shit. 'Boss! What the hell is this?! What are you talking about?' Vampires are going to be delivering parcels, Voice. 'Oh. / Is this a Jinksy PR email?' Yes. 'I thought so. That guy's a nutter! You don't want to listen to him.' He's eccentric, Voice. There's no need to be abusive.

Monster opportunity: the Vampire Economy will take wings this year with late night deliveries.

Many consumers now shop online late into the night. ParcelHero predicts this year will see the first 24-hour home deliveries, as retailers seek to make a killing in the late night 'vampire economy'.


Ha! Jinksy, dear reader(s), eh? What a character!

One in three Brits admit to shopping late at night a lot more than they did five years ago; and many businesses are now working 24 hours a day. Yet retailers and delivery companies have been slow to respond to the fast-growing demand for night-time deliveries. 2018 will finally see the dawn of late-night deliveries, predicts a new study by the e-commerce delivery experts ParcelHero.

Says ParcelHero's Head of Consumer Research, David Jinks MILT: "Night-time online browsing and purchasing has been dubbed by retail analysts the 'vampire economy'. Our new study: A Monster Opportunity: Delivering the Vampire Economy reveals why 2018 will be the year vampire economy deliveries finally take flight."

David reveals: "The new witching hour is not midnight, but 10.18pm. That's the peak time for nocturnal purchases according to Barclaycard. But 10pm is also the time Amazon Prime Now, Argos and Tesco Now deliveries pack up for the night. Clearly there's a gap between what consumers want, and what delivery options are now actually available."


Okay, okay. But what about the poor sods who've got to deliver the parcels? It's no fun being a delivery driver, you know. They're already working their butts off. They run around like blue-arsed flies, and for what? For pennies! 'They won't have any blue arses left soon, boss.' What?! Shut up, Voice! This is serious. It's got to stop. Someone has got to tell the customer: "Listen, son, you're not always right. You can't always have what you want, when you want. Workers need to rest, yeah? And they need to be paid properly. Don't take the piss." / Anyway ...

"One in five consumers want pharmacy items delivered to them in the small hours, for example," says David, "And one in ten customers are still ordering things up to 3am. In a society increasingly used to instant gratification shoppers see items they must have right now - and these night owl consumers are prepared to pay handsomely more for such late-night deliveries. Retailers need to wake up to the potential opportunities for increased sales and better margins."

Oh, oh! They're willing to pay more. But who gets the money? Right. I've had enough of this. Let's talk about music instead. 'Boss! Look! -'

David acknowledges: "One obvious difficulty with 24-hour deliveries is finding the drivers willing to work such unsocial hours. These concerns are very similar to the objections retailers faced when Sunday opening hours were first introduced in 1994. But, in the era of the gig economy, many people are choosing to work the hours that suit their lives; and the opportunity to earn a higher rate for night-time work is one that quite a number of delivery drivers would seize."

Well, that is just the living ENDS, that is! Gig economy?! Ha! Enough already!

...

Anything else? Music? I'm still waiting for my Tusq saddle to be delivered, for my guitar. However, I'm willing to wait, you dig? There are no vampires coming round my house!

Ah, laters. Have a nice weekend, reader(s)!