Blog

Welcome to the Blast-off blog!

Here’s the place where you can keep up to date with all the latest rumblings at Shutl Mission Control. You can also follow us on any of the social networks linked to below.

by Guy Westlake on August 25, 2010 at 10:50 am | Comment

August is usually a slow news month for retailers.  This August has been a bit of an exception – at least when it comes to delivery – with both Argos and Firebox launching new same day services.
It may not come as a surprise for me to tell you that delivery is a subject of some interest at Shutl HQ.  What we find particularly intriguing is that whilst there are currently only a handful of retailers offering “same day” delivery, these services can vary a great deal depending on the retailer.

You might be surprised to hear that a ’same day’ service from one retailer could in-fact take up to 36 hours to arrive and cost almost £20… whilst the same service at another retailer could take just 90 minutes and yield change from a fiver?   On the face of it, some ’same day’ services might appear to be rather more equal than others…

With delivery becoming an ever more important differentiator (topic for another post) we expect many more retailers to launch ’same day’ services in the build up to Christmas.  Whilst these offerings will all be labelled ’same day’ we also expect them to vary quite considerably.

Given this, we felt now would be an opportune moment to shed some light on what we believe ’same day’ delivery currently means to retailers and their customers.  It is our intention to use this data to enable a ‘like for like’ comparison of these services particularly as they develop , and promote discourse that might lead to standardisation and, eventually, universally improved customer offerings.
To this end, we are actively seeking feedback from shoppers, retailers and delivery providers in the hope that we can make this table as accurate and useful as possible. If you’d like us to cover your same day service then please get in touch!


NOTE: We have compiled the below table from UK retailers that we are aware currently offer a ’same day’ delivery proposition and the terms of service advertised within their websites.


DISCLOSURE:  Shutl powers Argos’s same day delivery offering and acknowledge this makes us somewhat unbiased… We are therefore very happy to pass the torch on to someone more appropriate should they put themselves forward.

by Rupert Greenhill on August 25, 2010 at 10:40 am | Comment
by Guy Westlake on August 20, 2010 at 10:38 am | Comment

The recent rainfall has resulted in a bonus for the nation’s retailers, proving that every cloud has a silver lining (sorry – couldn’t resist!). Online sales grew by 18% vs. the same period in 2009, which according to IMRG is the biggest jump since before the recession in 2007.

UK consumers spent £5bn online in July, with the average shopper spending £81 online. Much of this, however, can be attributed to discounts and promotional activities to complement the World Cup. Amazingly, there was a fall in alcohol sales, owed in all probability to the appalling performance of our boys in S. Africa.

Fingers crossed that this news is a sign of positive things to come…

by Guy Westlake on August 4, 2010 at 11:50 am | Comment

Central London-based visitors to www.argos.co.uk can now get their orders delivered within as little as 90 minutes, or pick a one-hour delivery window between 9am and 9pm. The service is offered seven days a week and costs from £4.95, which means that getting your purchase exactly when you want it can be even cheaper than a standard 2-3 day delivery charge.

Which stores is Shutl delivery available from?
The service is available from the following 12 Argos stores:

•  Whitechapel

•  Old Street

•  Holborn

•  New Oxford Street

•  Camden

•  Marble Arch

•  Victoria

•  Kilburn

•  Hammersmith

•  Old Kent Road

•  Kensington

•  Shepherd’s Bush

How do I order Shutl delivery?

Ordering Shutl delivery is unbelievably easy.  Just follow these simple steps:
1. Find the product(s) that you want to buy online.

2. Check local stock online by entering the postcode that you would like the item(s) shutl’d to.

3. On the confirmation screen, scroll down the page and click on the Shutl banner.



4. Confirm your delivery postcode and choose your shutl delivery option to get a quote.

by Guy Westlake on May 10, 2010 at 3:13 pm | Comment

On the back of last week’s post announcing our participation at the Next Web Paypal X Startup Rally, I wanted to follow up and give a little more information on some of the great new stuff that we announced at the event:

New client and a new POS solution

Last week we came out of closed beta and are very excited about going live with Laithwaites, the UK direct wine retailer. We’ve developed a point of sale (POS) application which they are deploying within their flag-ship London store right next to Borough market. More information to follow in a later post…

Partnership

We’re developing a new GPS tracking facility in partnership with Bing Maps, enabling consumers to watch the progress of their delivery in real-time from within Shutl’s website. This feature will go live on 24th May. Watch this space!

Opening up…

We’ve taken a second big step forward in opening up our platform to partners. Retailers and e-commerce solution providers are now able to build their own integrations and applications. Check out the new page on our website (http://shutl.co.uk/partners/developers)

As you can see, we’re keeping pretty busy with new developments at Shutl HQ!  Would love to hear any comments or feedback that you may have?

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