Are rural consumers getting a bad deal with parcel delivery?

People in more remote areas shouldn’t be excluded from delivery options

In February 2018 people in the UK spent £1.1 billion online each week — a 44% increase on weekly spending in March 2015.

This rapid shift in shopping habits means reliable and affordable parcel services are becoming vital to modern life. It’s increasingly important for people to be able to arrange deliveries for a time and place that suits them.

As the consumer advocate for the postal market, Citizens Advice has a responsibility to help make sure everybody has access to high quality, affordable postal services. We give special attention to groups who might be at a disadvantage, like the 9.3 million people in the UK living in rural areas.

These areas include small towns and villages, as well as more sparsely populated areas and remote properties.

Our previous research found people in rural areas rely heavily on postal services. They’re 50% more likely than urban residents to use a post office at least weekly.

Are people in rural areas missing out?

Online shopping can offer huge benefits, including more choice, cheaper prices and greater convenience. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimate households save £560 a year by shopping and paying bills online.

People who live in rural areas have the most to gain — they don’t have a wide range of shops on their doorstep so shopping online gives them access to a wider range of products.

It’s important they’re able to receive parcel deliveries as easily as anybody else, no matter where they live.

We looked at a range of evidence to see how the parcel delivery service differs in rural compared to urban areas. We found 3 key areas of interest.

1. Rural consumers have different preferences to those in urban areas.

Most people prefer to have their online shopping delivered to their home address. However, 2 in 5 online shoppers say there’s never anyone home to accept deliveries — or someone’s at home only on some days.

This means parcels are often sent to an alternative location like a newsagent, left with a neighbour or in a safe space, or collected from the delivery office.

People in rural areas prefer items to be left in a safe place if they’re not home, whereas urban counterparts prefer to pick up deliveries from the delivery office.

This partly because only 1 in 20 people in remote areas have easy access to a shop that offers parcel collection. Compared to this, 1 in 4 say they have a friendly postman or family member available to receive parcels.

2. Rural consumers experience some problems more than other groups.

7 in 10 online shoppers had experienced a problem with parcel delivery in the past year. The average shopper experienced 4 problems in this time.

Problems range from the inconvenience of having to stay at home, to parcels being left in places where they might be stolen or damaged. The most common problems were parcels being late, or people receiving a ‘sorry you were out’ slip despite being at home waiting for delivery.

Most of these problems affect people equally, no matter where they live, but one exception is late delivery. Those in rural areas have their parcels delivered late slightly more frequently than people in urban areas.

Another notable exception is surcharging — where extra charges are applied based on location. It mainly affects people in the Highlands and Islands areas of Scotland. In the central Highlands shoppers pay an average of 30% more for delivery. Some retailers refuse to deliver to these locations altogether.

These areas can be very rural, but the way surcharges are applied by retailers means people in urban areas are also often affected. But there are improvements being made in this area.

Last week the Advertising Standards Agency introduced new rules saying the term ‘UK Delivery’ must include all parts of the UK, including the Highlands and Islands.

This means companies won’t be able to add surcharges for remote areas to advertised delivery costs if they’ve said the amount covers UK delivery.

3. Even when the problems are the same, the solutions will be different.

Last year, up to 40 million parcels weren’t delivered on the first attempt.

Missing a delivery can be frustrating for people, and our research shows 2 in 5 people (41%) who had a post or delivery problem felt worried or anxious as a result.

Missed delivery is also expensive. The online retailer association IMRG estimate businesses lost £435 million last year because of failed first deliveries.

Giving people more control over how and where their parcels are delivered could help reduce this problem, and make sure parcels go to the right place first time. At the moment, less than half (47%) can get their shopping sent to a third-party location such as a parcel locker. Only 1 in 6 (17%) can choose the delivery company.

Control and choice are also important. Different solutions will work better for people in different areas. People in rural areas would benefit more from the ability to nominate a safe place for their parcel — and a way of verifying that the parcel was dropped off correctly, as they’re less likely to have a conveniently located locker or parcel shop.

Parcel lockers are better suited to densely-populated urban areas where there’s a high number of deliveries.

In our upcoming research, we’ll explore some of these issues in more detail. We’ll be looking at parcel shops like Doddle and Collect+, mapping their distribution across the country and finding out more about people’s experience of using them.