Alan Brown, CEO of Initial Rentokill, owners of Citylink, today described the UK Parcel Delivery Market as being a "complicated situation".  He said that the market in general is on "tenderhooks" awiting the timing of the Christmas Parcel Delivery rush. 

UK Shoppers Spending Later this year for Christmas

UK customers and retailers have been in a standoff situation for the past few weeks, both groups waiting to see who'll crack first, whether the shoppers will start shopping or the retails will drop their prices.  Yesterday two of the high street's biggest retailers Debenhams & Marks and Spencers kicked off dramatic 25% and 20%, respectively,off all prices in store.  And reports are showing that it did work, with some customers doing their entire Christmas Shopping in one day.

Delays in Online Shopping could cause logistic problems for Parcel & Delivery Companies

Online shopping has also seen this delay in spending, and that the economic situation is likely to result in a much later Christmas rush than normal.  However, Alan Brown voiced worries that the Parcel Distribution & delivery companies were fearfull that this could result in a huge surge of deliveries in the last two weeks of December, and that they were preparing themselves accordinly.

Falling Volume of Parcel Deliveries for UK Parcel Companies

The UK Parcel market is in a very complex situation, it is seeing a downwards revenue trend, based on a falling number of deliveries.  It is also however a market that needs a critical volume, and at present the volume of parcels just isn't being generated by the underlying business and retailers.

Citylink making Dramatic Improvements in Customer Service

Alan Brown reported today that he was very impressed with the way that Citylink had performed this year, and despite the fact that it is still on track to make £45m losses for 2008 year, the improvements in customer service are feeding through into very real and significant cost savings.  He stated that Citylink are now providing a 99% on time service, and that this reprents true operational excellence.  The impact of this dramatic increase in customer service is an anticipated £15m reduction in credits made to customers for late deliveries/breakages etc.