Ongoing dramas with couriers damaging her products while being delivered to customers forced a children's furniture retailer to look for a better solution.
Swapping courier companies didn't help. "We've tried a number of courier services over the years and they're all as bad as each other," says Kristy Withers, the founder of Incy Interiors.
Damaged goods
Virtually everything Withers' range is flat-packed, but damage was still occurring, she says. "It was diabolical. We naively started manufacturing and fulfilling orders, not even contemplating the potential for our products to be damaged while being delivered."
While Incy Interiors has always been quick to respond to the customer and resolve the issue, it was taking up a huge amount of Withers' time.
"Customers were sending us pictures of a parcel that has clearly been run over and everything inside is crushed, and yet the courier has completely ignored the damage and delivered it anyway. Another parcel had a huge forklift hole through the middle of the dresser.
"If they just answered the phone when you call them to resolve an issue, and deliver when you say you're going to, it would be a miracle. I don't understand why courier companies don't think they have to offer the basic services that other small businesses have to."
Tracking traumas
Of course, Incy Interiors is by no means alone. Brisbane small business Lasertag-in-a-box has had its fair share of headaches with courier companies.
Nicole Lander uses a shipping company that promises tracking, but that doesn't always happen.
"The company is fine in the city, but once we need to send something to a regional area and the courier needs to outsource to an agent, the tracking system is intermittent," she says.
The parcels, containing laser tag equipment often used for children's parties, contain about $1000 worth of equipment.
The customer then needs to return the rented equipment back to the Brisbane business.
I don't understand why courier companies don't think they have to offer the basic services that other small businesses have to.
Kristy Withers, Incy Interiors.
"All we can do is keep in touch with the customer and ask if the parcel has arrived. It's extremely frustrating."
Widespread issues
Courier complaints are widespread with most small business owners experiencing dramas with a courier company at some stage.
According to a recent survey, 49 per cent believe that courier services are difficult to track down during the shipping process.
Conducted by crowd-sourced delivery service Go People, the survey gathered responses from 1000 men and women aged 18 and over during April.
While a smaller player in the courier service landscape, Go People believes customers will gravitate to the service to gain access to geotechnology that enables them to pinpoint on a map exactly where their parcel is located.
Go People chief executive Wayne Wang says the platform combats unreliable delivery services which hamper the success of small businesses, particularly in the lead-up to Amazon's arrival onto Australian shores.
"In the current landscape, retailers have very little control over delivery times and couriers are the ones being blamed for this," Wang says.
Extreme packaging solution
For Withers, the answer lay in what she calls "extreme packaging", which has been an expensive process.
"After 12 months of headaches with damage caused by couriers we decided to rethink the packaging. The cardboard packaging we use doesn't bend. It's the thickest cardboard on the market. We've also introduced big foam corners or insert a metal corner inside the box. And we always keep spare parts to be able to send straight out to customers."
Incy Interiors, which manufactures in Asia, absorbs the costs involved in the stronger packaging, which isn't cheap, equating to 4 per cent of the product cost. Stronger packaging has reduced product damage down to just 1 per cent of products shipped, enabling Withers to go on to build a hugely successful business since launching in 2007.
Today, Incy Interiors is a major Australian furniture brand in its own right, with 112 stockists across the country, though the stockists sell less than the two Incy Interiors branded stores, located in Chatswood and Bathurst.
However, the sales hero of the brand is the online store, which generates 90 per cent of its sales, with turnover at $7 million last financial year. Incy Interiors launched in the US last year, which equates to 15 per cent of sales.
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