Consumer delivery company Hermes UK says it “coped well” with a dramatic 34% rise in volumes over the Black Friday weekend.
The company’s retail and myHermes order volumes grew by 50% on Black Friday itself, compared to the previous year. This was significantly higher than industry figures published by retail researcher Experian-IMRG which showed that Britons spent £1.1 billion online on "Black Friday", an increase of 36% on the previous year.
Throughout the weekend in total Hermes successfully processed 4.8 million items, compared to 3.6 million during the same period in 2014, an overall increase of 34%.
The company said it was ‘business as usual’ and credited its investment in additional capacity which saw it significantly strengthen its network and infrastructure this year in anticipation of significantly increased volumes over the Black Friday and Christmas period.
This included the completion of a secondary sortation tier at its fully automated distribution hub in Warrington, providing the capability to process up to one million parcels a day at that site. In addition, Hermes has opened another 125 sub depots, as well as increasing the number of scanners and handheld terminals across the business and adding 3,000 couriers to its network.
The company has also been working closely with its retail customers analysing forecasted volumes and confirming collection schedules. Representatives from Hermes’ customer service team are also stationed at clients’ contact centres to deal exclusively with any enquiries and to assist on-site teams.
Carole Woodhead, CEO at Hermes, said: “Despite the massive increase in volumes this year we coped well as a result of our investment and our intensive planning programme with our retail customers. Despite some challenges around bad weather in the North of the country we were able to deliver on time. We are fully prepared for the peak period which we expect to continue from now until Christmas Eve.”
