Consumers want, but don’t expect, Sunday parcel deliveries, survey finds

Pitney Bowes said it was surprised by the percentage of respondents who valued Sunday deliveries. That said, while a good-sized minority wanted it, about 75% of those surveyed didn’t expect it to happen. The dichotomy indicates that those who would like Sunday deliveries are being “more aspirational than realistic” about its prospects, the authors found.

In fact, most respondents don’t consider Sunday to be a delivery day, according to the survey.

About 40% of respondents to an earlier survey said that if an online purchase was made on a Friday with a three-day shipping commitment, the latest they would expect the order to arrive would be the following Tuesday. About 39% of respondents extended their delivery-expectation window to Wednesday. Only 21% of respondents said they would expect that order to arrive on the following Monday.

By contrast, respondents with expectations of Monday or Tuesday deliveries generally count Saturday as part of the three-day window, according to the survey. The findings indicate that Saturday, unlike Sunday, is perceived by more consumers as an extension of the traditional weekday delivery cycle.

In general, how a consumer defines a “fast” delivery was no different in August than in March, the last time the question was asked. As of last month, 4.2 days was respondents’ average definition of a fast delivery. That compared with 4.1 days in March, according to the survey. The findings excluded deliveries of groceries and other perishables.

The parcel-delivery carriers’ current offerings give credence to the view that consumers’ Sunday delivery expectations are ahead of reality. UPS Inc. (NYSE: UPS) does not offer Sunday deliveries. The U.S. Postal Service offers Sunday service but almost exclusively for Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN). FedEx Ground, the ground delivery unit of FedEx Corp., (NYSE: FDX) has begun to scale back its 2-year-old nationwide rollout of Sunday service amid concerns from its delivery contractors that there isn’t enough profitable volume to justify the additional labor and equipment costs.

FedEx Ground has suspended Sunday deliveries across 10% to 15% of its national network. Spencer Patton, a former FedEx delivery contractor leading an effort to aid contractors facing higher operating costs and slowing e-commerce volumes, wants the FedEx unit to scrub Sunday service altogether.

Satish Jindel, founder and president of ShipMatrix Inc., a consultancy, has said that FedEx Ground’s Sunday deliveries should be confined to major commerce nodes. Jindel has argued that the network operation, as currently designed, is a cost drain on FedEx Ground and its drivers because there aren’t pick-ups at businesses to offset the lower residential volumes.