July 16 2019

Yodel and Shop Direct win Delivery Initiative of the Year at the Retail Systems Awards 2019

Yodel’s digital team claims its fourth win of the year as the carrier cements itself as a leader in logistics innovation

Shop Direct, the UK’s largest integrated digital retailer and financial services provider, and independent parcel carrier, Yodel, have been awarded Delivery Initiative of the Year at the Retail Systems Awards 2019 for Yodel’s Xperience service. The awards celebrate excellence in technology and innovation within the retail sector.

Xperience, which was developed by Yodel in partnership with Shop Direct, provides customers with a seamless retailer branded journey from the point of order through to delivery. Xperience uses an Application Programme Interface (API) so that the order information, delivery and returns tracking all appear on the retailer’s website. It even allows Yodel’s customer feedback survey, Have Your Say, to be embedded into the retailer’s site, so that customers only need to visit one website throughout their entire purchasing and delivery journey. All email and mobile push notifications to customers, updating them on their delivery, can also be retailer branded.

Matthew Jacques, product and innovation director at Yodel and CollectPlus , commented: “We launched Xperience last year. The service allows Yodel’s retail clients to give their customers a seamless journey from order to delivery, all under the retailer’s branding. We know that customers can sometimes be frustrated with being passed back and forth between the retailer and carrier, receiving duplicate messages about the delivery of their order,  so we introduced Xperience to streamline the experience and give retailers like Shop Direct complete brand control.

“This award is a credit to our innovation and digital teams who have worked with our retailer partners to create and develop Xperience. We’re continuing to invest heavily in our people and systems, so we’re pleased to be formally recognised by the retail industry.”

Phil Hackney, chief operating officer at Shop Direct , which owns Very.co.uk and Littlewoods.com, commented: “The Xperience API has allowed us to give our customers added-value tracking information, like delivery time windows and real time tracking maps, without them having to visit our carrier’s website. This means our customers can check on the progress of their parcels and then continue to shop on the Very or Littlewoods sites. We’re delighted it’s been recognised by the industry.”

This is the fourth award that has been won by Yodel’s digital team and the third award for the Xperience service this year. The other awards include:

• Best Continuous Deployment Project Award, at the Computing DevOps Excellence Awards, March 2019
• Best DevOps Team award, at the Computing DevOps Excellence Awards, March 2019
• Retail and eCommerce Innovator of the Year, at the techies 2019, May 2019

The DevOps team, which sits within the digital team at Yodel, has been instrumental in transforming the carrier’s client offering, including Yodel’s Inflight service, which allows customers to redirect or change the date of their delivery after an order has been placed.

For more information on Yodel’s Xperience suite, click here.