iForce dispatched 6 million orders, on behalf of its clients, valued at £500 million in 2010, continuing its significant year on year growth since 2005, when just 750,000 orders were sent out.
iForce has announced that it dispatched 6 million orders in 2010, that's 25 per cent more than 2009. While orders grew by 25 per cent, the number of items dispatched by iForce in 2010 as a whole increased by approximately one third compared to 2009 (31 per cent) to 25 million, which indicates that shoppers are buying more items per online order.
This underline's the continuing growth in online shopping as well as the position of the UK's leading specialist outsourced logistics operator as a significant player in the online retail sector. Providing e-fulfilment for prominent high street names such as John Lewis, Sainsbury's, Boots, Waitrose Wine Direct, Habitat, Paperchase and Fortnum & Mason, which are achieving substantial year on year online growth has placed iForce at the heart of this important retail sector.
The online retail peak period from 1 October to 31 December is when e-fulfilment is truly tested, and during this time iForce dispatched 2.6 million orders, which was an increase of 15 per cent on 2009. That's 10 million items with a total retail value of £200 million - both figures showing a 14 per cent increase on last year.
In the week beginning Monday 13 December, when online Christmas Shopping dispatches were at their busiest, iForce dispatched 360,000 orders alone. This equated to 1.2 million items for the week, up by a substantial 27 per cent on the same time 2009.
"2010 has been an incredible and successful year for us," reports Mark Hewitt, CEO of iForce. "Managing total annual increases of over 30 per cent in items despatched demonstrates our unquestioned ability to scale successfully our operations to meet the needs of our clients. In this regard, as well as many others, we offer an unrivalled level of service and security for our clients.
"Peak activity was as challenging as ever with some of our clients showing year on year increases of more than 30%. Moreover, the unexpected volume spikes that resulted from the extremely bad weather saw volumes soar as the first snows arrived. It is at times like these when the investment you make in your people, training, processes and systems pays off and I am pleased at how the teams at each of our sites responded to the unexpected volume spike with diligence and professionalism. This ensured that all SLAs (Service Level Agreeements) were met and all client expectations exceeded."
Mark Hewitt sees the success of 2010 carrying on into this year. He commented: "The start of 2011 has seen unprecedented volumes handled, in a shortened period of time, as part of our clients' post Christmas sales. Additionally, the volumes processed through our multi-channel returns processing and remarketing arm have soared to new record levels in the first two weeks of January."