Retailers are making life easier for Christmas procrastinators – those who leave their present shopping until the last minute. Gone are the days when Christmas Eve buyers need to rush out to find any open shop. Members of Amazon (US:AMZN) Prime can now order until Christmas Eve, pay nothing extra and still receive their present – gift wrapped if desired – before any family member notices there is a gap beneath the tree.
Sure, Amazon is head and shoulders above any other retailer when it comes to Christmas delivery dates, but its high street and online peers have made big improvements in recent years to keep up with the competition. Those hoping to treat their loved ones with trinkets from Marks & Spencer (MKS) or Debenhams (DEB) can keep ordering until Friday 22 December, Asos (ASC) will keep its next-day delivery service open until the eve of Christmas Eve, while Next (NXT) has promised to dish out gift cards to any customer whose present is not delivered as fast as promised.
Christmas last order dates are getting later
| For the cheapest delivery option (cost) | |||
2017 | 2016 | 2012 | 2011 | |
Amazon | 24/12 (free via Prime) | 24/12 (free via Prime) | 20/12 (free) | 20/12 (free) |
Asos | 22/12 (£6) | 23/12 (£3) | 21/12 (free) | 21/12 (free) |
Debenhams | 23/12 (£4) | 20/12 (£3) | 22/12 (£7) | 21/12 (£7) |
M&S | 22/12 (£4) | 18/12 (£3.50) | 19/12 (£3.50) | 19/12 (£3.50) |
Next | 22/12 (£4) | 22/12 (£4) | 22/12 (£4) | 22/12 (£4) |
Source: Data collected from companies, Moneysavingexpert.com, Parcelforce.com
Keeping up with the modern demands of consumers is vital because Christmas matters to the high street. According to the ONS Retail Sales Index, last year over £43bn was spent in December, accounting for 12.5 per cent of the year’s sales (3.2 percentage points higher than the second most lucrative month). And the importance of the festive period is growing. Research conducted by VoucherCodes.co.uk and the Centre for Retail Research estimated that UK families will spend an average of £821 on Christmas this year, 1.4 per cent more than 2016, after accounting for inflation. This includes gifts, food, drink and decorations, with gifts taking up £244 per adult.
The proportion of spending coming via the internet is also on the rise. In 2016, UK online retail sales reached £133bn – an increase of £18bn year on year – with £25bn spent online between 13 November and Christmas Eve. This data, collected by market expert E-Consultancy, also found that shoppers are spending more time browsing in the last hours before Christmas. On Christmas Eve in 2016 there were 90m online retail visits, up 6 per cent on the prior year.
But bending to these demands has not come cheap. M&S – which has improved its last Christmas order date by three days since 2011 – has increased its investment in UK logistics by 20 per cent in the past year. That's despite a large overall decline in capital expenditure during the past five years. Meanwhile, Asos has set aside between £200m and £220m in the financial year to October 2018 – a step up on the £168m spent in the 2017 financial year – because “investment in technology and logistics is key to sustaining the strong growth momentum within the business”.
Even Amazon has started to feel the heat. For so long it has been without competition, simply able to brush away minnows that stand in its path to becoming ‘the everything store’. But with Alibaba creeping out of China, that dominance could soon be under threat. Meanwhile, Amazon has inflated consumers’ expectations of realistic gift delivery times. Having to wait more than a day for an order to arrive is no longer good enough. The US giant is therefore now having to spend more than ever before on logistics and technology: 2017 marked the first year it managed to deliver a product within half an hour using one of its drones.
There have also been murmurings that Amazon may soon launch a courier operation to rival that of FedEx or UPS, following accusations that the latter is unprepared to handle the demands of the busy Christmas period. In the UK, most retailers outsource their delivery services to companies such as DX (DX.), John Menzies (MNZS), Clipper Logistics (CLG) or Eddie Stobart Logistics (ESL). These companies are likely to be under pressure to perform over the Christmas period, particularly now that Amazon is threatening to expand into their territory.
