E-commerce firm takes a lot of flak

Times Media consumer writer Wendy Knowler writes a weekly column on issues affecting consumers. If you have something you would like her to investigate, send queries to: consumer@knowler.co.za Follow her on Twitter: @wendyknowler

ONLINE retailer Takealot told South Africans in a lavish TV ad campaign: “We’ve got Christmas covered.”

But for thousands of people who did not receive their orders by Christmas Day, it turned out to be the season of “wait a lot”.

“Absolutely pathetic customer service,” Ronelle Singh wrote on the retailer’s Facebook page.

“I placed an order and paid additional delivery to receive my item on Christmas Eve – a week later and still no delivery after numerous follow-up calls and no feedback .”

Kirsten Coutsoudis wrote: “Takealot’s service delivery was beyond appalling this Christmas!

“You weren’t able to deliver my Christmas presents by the promised dates, sent half-packages, managers don’t call back when they say they will.”

But Takealot chief marketing officer Julie-Anne Walsh rejected the suggestion that the company had overpromised and underdelivered.

She said this “can’t be statistically validated and is not accurate”.

Asked to quantify Takealot’s late deliveries, Walsh would only say it was “a single-digit percentage” – the same as in previous years.

She gave the number of successful orders – not total orders – processed in November and last month as “more than 650 000”.

I think it’s safe to assume that “single-digit” percentage of late orders was somewhere between 5% and 9%, or the company would surely have said “less than 5%”, so I’m going to go with 7.5%.

That puts the number of late deliveries at 48 750. Given that the total order number would have been far higher than 650 000, let’s round that up to 50 000 Takelot customers who were let down.

They would almost fill Cape Town’s Newlands stadium (51 900).

eCommerce analyst Arthur Goldstuck, who heads research company World Wide Worx, said it was “generally agreed” that the acceptable late delivery rate was a matter of a fraction of a percent rather than a percent or more.

“A single-digit percentage of late deliveries would be disastrous,” he said. “Even if it was 1% – more than 6 500 orders in this case – it could turn into a public relations fiasco for any brand in the age of social media.”

Did Black Friday – the US retail phenomenon embraced by South Africans a month before Christmas – have anything to do with all those late Takealot deliveries? Not according to Walsh. So what then? “Numerous issues can cause a late delivery,” Walsh said. “Some are within our control and some unfortunately are out of our control, like a supplier letting us down or stock that we thought we had no longer being available in our warehouse, due to shrinkage etc.

“We do, however, make every effort to communicate changes in delivery dates to our customers as soon as possible and will credit and refund anyone who deems the revised date to be unacceptable.”

Maria Thomas felt Takealot should go a step further.

“Cut your losses and do the right thing,” she suggested.

“Send each customer whose delivery was delayed a discount voucher as a form of apology.”

Walsh responded: “Given the variables at play in any given customer order, we deal with every order on an individual basis.

“So there is no blanket comment or compensation we can give for all [late] orders.” Goldstuck sees it differently. “In the US in 2013, bad weather and poor anticipation of an e-commerce surge led to more than two million packages arriving after Christmas.

“That was a disaster for the industry, and most major retailers had to revise their logistics and renegotiate service levels with courier services,” Goldstuck said.

“That year, Amazon refunded delivery fees and gave gift cards – local retailers need to take a similar approach.”

The lead-up to Christmas was the single most sensitive period of the year in terms of managing and meeting consumer expectations of e-commerce, Goldstuck said.

“It is critical that an online site communicates clearly whether items are in stock, and what delivery time can be anticipated.

“The moment the company shifts the goalposts after accepting someone’s payment, it is not only on the back foot, but should compensate the customer.

“Glib responses are not enough – transparent and continuous communication becomes critical. That didn’t appear to happen here.”

Goldstuck said South Africa’s online retailers also needed to tackle poor cooperation from some courier companies.

“We are hearing stories of warehouses clogged up because a major courier service closed shop at 1pm on December 24 and only opened again five days later.”

Technology research firm Strategy chief executive Steven Ambrose said online retail had finally come fully into itself this holiday season and now exceeded 1% of all retail sales in South Africa.

“Overall, the South Africa retailers are performing well and appear to be within internationally acceptable limits for delivery,” he said.

ý If you have not received your Takealot order in time, I found the fastest way to reach the company was via its help page: https://secure. takealot.com/help

“Contacting us here captures all the details we need to address your individual query,” the company site says.

“It is sent straight to the right team within the business who can help as quickly as possible and is much more direct than a phone call.”