Mark John Price

Key Benefits

  1. Consumers do not have to wait at home for their courier deliveries
  2. No more ‘Card2Call’ anxiety; get your parcel when you feel like it
  3. Business delivery times (9:00 am) rather than the “before 5:00 pm” times for residential
  4. Provides consumers with elite experience from POS to parcel delivery
  5. Secure and effortless alternative to regular parcel delivery

Qualitative Research

RESEARCH PURPOSE

To discover whether our consumer will be able to relate to the Parcelbox service, find the service useful, and be willing and able to pay to the standards which meet our Key Performance Indicators.

 

This survey aims to:

  • Find pain points the consumer has relating to courier parcel retrieval
  • Include a maximum of 35 participants who live in residential apartments
  • Assist potential marketing messages and understand current satisfaction levels
  • Analyse the data to offer consensus to the viability of Parcelbox

MANAGEMENT PROBLEM

Parcelbox’s management problem is showing whether there is a need for the service, and to create a foundation of discovery for how we will communicate and market to the wider consumer. Our current target market is the wider New Zealand consumer between 18 and 70 years of age, who is an individual (or non-married couple) with no children.

MARKETING PROBLEM

The aims given by this research will help Parcelbox’s marketing problem by exposing what major pain points the target consumer has with courier deliveries, how they circumnavigate those pains and draw up significantly emerging psychographic and behaviourally similar themes to draw conclusions from.

Qualitative Research

Survey Questions

Survey Responses

Summary of Results

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Demographics

  • Overrepresentation of 19-25-year-olds
  • Working professionals living in apartments dominate 26-41-year age groups
  • Growing number of Indian and East Asian groups
  • Almost half were not of educated-class
  • Most respondents were renting, not owning
  • Owner-occupied dwellings on the rise
  • International visitors sub-rented and paid lowest rents

Online Activity

  • iOS preferred over Android overall, and in higher income groups
  • Chinese strongly attached to WeChat, exclusively
  • Females and younger age groups dominated Instagram and Snapchat
  • Older respondents preferred Facebook and LinkedIn
  • Facebook is preferred by men
  • International preferred 3rd party WhatsApp and Line
  • Facebook preferred overall – followed by Instagram, Snapchat, and then WeChat

Competitor: ParcelPod

  • 90% of consumers have never heard of ParcelPod
  • 7% who has heard of it – does not use it, because it is exclusive to NZ Post & CourierPost

Delivery Experience

  • Almost 90% deal with packages by themselves
  • Respondents showed resentment over needing signatures
  • Respondents still agreed signatures added security
  • Fanatical support for $2.00 fee to store parcels whilst away
  • Courier companies are difficult to contact
  • Most respondents were comfortable tracking their packages

Courier Experience

  • 6% had received a package within 6 months
  • Over half receives more than 6 parcels annually
  • 2% experienced card 2call
  • 71% missed parcels due to not being home

SHORT ANSWERS

Experience speaks.

From the Word Clouds, when asking respondents about their worst experiences, as well as their high-level cognitive thoughts, behaviours, and attitudes towards their experiences – frequently-used words and themes became known. This was vital to understand if we were to appeal to a wider audience, keep our marketing strategy succinct, and pierce the minds of the interconnected and media-saturated consumers.

Worst Courier Experience

Words which were most prominently associated with negative service experiences were:

  • Card2Call
  • Parcel
  • Time
  • Pickup
  • Long
  • Leave
  • Home
 

worstcourier

Stress avoidance 

Words ascribed to the behaviours in which consumers go through to best avoid missing a parcel were:

  • Depot
  • Time
  • Try
  • Signature
  • Home
  • Track

stressavoid

Anxiety Avoidance

Words which were most prominently associated with anxiety-avoidance were:

  • Depot
  • Time
  • Home
  • Tracking
  • Wait
  • Try
  • Signature
  • Stay
 

worstcourier

It is clear from these lists that Parcelbox’s communication will centre around reduction of time wasted, unapologetic need to provide effort, to be pragmatic and self-sufficient, and for customers to spend as little of time as possible using us. There is no need to wait at home – and this is our crucial message.

This is just a summary of our primary survey data

QUANTITATIVE DATA

Living in an urban multi-storey dwelling provides residents with a complex array of burdens and benefits. One of those burdens is evident if a resident purchases a product online and wants it delivered via courier – having to sign for parcels in person – requiring recipients to be onsite when the courier arrives. Failing to meet this requirement, the recipient is left no other option but to have the package returned to the postal depot. 

Apartment supply by location.JPG

This is particularly challenging for full-time working residents and students, who may not have an alternative secure location to have packages delivered to, which is also convenient enough to warrant a populous alternative. Many residents are left out of the option to rent PO-Boxes supplied by local post outlets, as they require a minimum of 1-year rental of $170 and over, annually – whilst others do not receive enough mail to warrant the investment.

Courier drivers delivering packages to multi-storey dwellings spend close to 30 minutes waiting for residents to come outside to collect parcels. Recently, the Auckland Council has released a reformed Unitary Plan, which looks to increase housing supply, by the reclassification of zones within the Auckland Region. This is where our company seeks to pierce the market. Parcelbox NZ Ltd is a company offering a new service of Electronic Post Boxes (EPB) to the market. It’s ultimately initiated by similar products gaining popularity in Chinese schools and apartment buildings, and has been implemented by Australian Post’s “MyPost.”

apartment sales by room number.JPG

ConstructionBoom.JPG

Service Blueprint / Customer Journey

We also mapped out how the consumer interacted with the App, any pain points the consumer may face and highlight service weaknesses and strengths.

customer-journey-service-blueprint

The project started out as a university assignment; a Group Integrated Project that combined all elements of Marketing, Advertising, Retail, and Sales (M.A.R.S.) into one project. We also had to design, implement, and facilitate an entire Social Media campaign. I lead the team. Fast forward – my partner and I have refined the strategies and concept, and now are seeking seed capital and angel investment for market implementation.