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Date:24 July 2012

Advice for Consumers Ordering Online During Olympic Games

Due to the road restrictions that will be in force during the Olympic and Paralympic Games, many London-based companies are allowing some of their staff to work from home to ease congestion on public transport.

IMRG anticipate that there may be a boom in online shopping during this period, as a higher proportion of consumers will be at home to receive delivery of any orders they place. While this is good news for online retailers in terms of order volumes, the road restrictions do pose a challenge to the carriers fulfilling those orders.

The main change you may notice is that some retailers temporarily make certain delivery options unavailable, such as timed deliveries The main areas impacted by road restrictions will be London / South East (where 30% of all UK e-retail deliveries are made) and Olympic locations such as Weymouth (sailing).

Below we outline some general advice to help manage your online deliveries and give you the best chance of receiving your delivery on time, first time.

• Place your orders in plenty of time and try to avoid ordering at the last minute – delays may occur as delivery drivers will struggle to make as many deliveries as they usually do in a day because of traffic restrictions and congestion;
• Make sure someone is there to receive your order – delays and backlogs can be made worse if drivers can’t deliver because they can’t unload deliveries as this gives them more deliveries to attempt on following days;
• Help the driver by thinking about your delivery circumstances –  
• Select a delivery address where you know you will be;
• If possible, select a delivery address outside of the heavily restricted areas – areas affected will change day by day, so find out what events are on and what restrictions there will be;
• Choose an Alternative Delivery Location where the order can be delivered and it is easier for you to walk to / drive to outside of restricted hours:
• Click and collect – the retailer’s local outlet;
• Alternative pick up points such as Convenience stores and petrol stations open early until late 7 days a week (For example Collect+ with over 4,700 locations; Hermes Parcelshops with 500 locations;
• Locker Boxes – MyByBox – Shopping malls, train stations and other easy to get to locations;
• Post Offices – Local Collect service;
• If you do select delivery to your home address, some may arrive out of ‘normal hours’ – earlier or later as drivers try to avoid congestion and restrictions;
• Choose a ‘tracked service’ – so that you can go online and check the status of your order;
• The impact may be felt outside of affected areas too – understand that just because there may not be restrictions in your immediate area on any day, deliveries could still be affected as the local delivery depot may be in a restricted area, the drivers may have come through restricted areas and simply because carriers will be generally very busy;

Contact:
Andy Mulcahy
IMRG
0207 716 5607
press@imrg.org

About IMRG
IMRG (Interactive Media in Retail Group) is the UK’s industry association for e-retailing. IMRG is a membership community, set up to develop and the latest best practice advice to enable retailers to succeed in the world’s most competitive online market. IMRG is the recognised authoritative voice of e-retail, supporting and promoting online shopping and digital commerce since 1990.