E-commerce delivery time slots are major factor for holiday sales

According to a recent survey from Postcode Anywhere, nearly two-thirds of consumers considered timed deliveries as important to their online shopping experience. In addition, 64 percent of UK consumers rated delivery slots as important or very important when shopping online.

Guy Mucklow, managing director of Postcode Anywhere, said while it is important to make an e-commerce website as efficient as possible, retailers cannot ignore the equally significant impact delivery times have on consumers' brand perceptions.

"Receiving a missed delivery slip instead of the goods you ordered can seem more of a taunt than an assurance that the driver got there while you were out," Mucklow said.

Mucklow recommends that online retailers analyze their customer experience from start to finish to make sure there are no gaps or room for error that could leave the consumer unsatisfied.

And this holiday season every online retailer is expected to be very busy, according to a recent study published by the European Parliament. The report found the number of Europeans shopping on the internet has doubled in the past five years. EGovmonitor reported the data revealed wealthier countries in the northern and western Europe accounted for the majority of the increase in online consumers, with little change coming from the south and east regions.