Evri delivered 24.7m parcels (to 7 December 2024) as post-Black Friday deliveries rose by 20.8% on the same period in 2023. This ‘mega-week’ was followed by weeks of high demand post Black Friday and Cyber Monday as consumers left it late to grab deals from online retailers, putting their trust in last-minute deliveries, while Evri’s standard on-time service levels also remained strong.
Martijn De Lange, Chief Executive of Evri, said: “We continue to see fast growth towards our five-year target to become a billion parcel a year business and the Christmas trading period was no exception with our delivery volumes demonstrating that retailers online offerings fared much better than expected. We saw record volumes of deliveries and double digit growth as generous shoppers treated loved ones and friends.
“During a festive season that saw approximately 40 million UK adults doing most of their Christmas shopping online, the investments in our network and customer service paid off – sustaining our yearly average of more than 99% of standard parcels being delivered on time. We recruited an extra 9,000 people to prepare for our busiest trading period and our amazing couriers and colleagues stopped at nothing as they came together to deliver for our retail clients and shoppers.”
Evri grew total parcel volumes by 12% to 173 million over the nine weeks to 28 December 2024, despite the disruption caused by volatile weather, such as Storm Darragh in early December. On average Evri delivered 2.7 million parcels a day over this period as almost 4,000 parcels reached UK households every minute, with deliveries rising to almost 3.8 million on its busiest day on December 4th.
Growth was broad based across segments with Evri an integral part of the supply chains across the market. Volume from domestic retailers was up 6.9%, while overseas inbound trade from online retailers and marketplaces continued to deliver strong growth, with volumes up 24.0% year on year as customers focussed on value.
Evri also saw strong demand from its eCommerce segment as the growth in online marketplaces and social media shopping continues to be a growing part of consumers’ retail habits.
This resilient performance reflects Evri’s investment of around £35m during the Peak period to enhance its operations with more delivery units and 8,000 extra couriers recruited, with another 1,000 added across other parts of the business. It also boosted its customer service to make it easier for customers to contact the company, in addition to providing new delivery preference options for people with accessibility needs.
