Dive Brief:
- While delivery speed matters, executives at Macy's, Ulta Beauty and other companies say reliability is more important to maintain and grow their customer bases.
- "If we tell you we're going to get something to you in three days, and every time we deliver in three days, you're going to keep coming back, right?" Vinny Pagliuca, Macy's director of supply chain sourcing and procurement, said during a panel at Home Delivery World 2026 last month. "It's when you're not reliable is when we're going to lose our customers, and that's what we see."
- Other shippers at the conference agreed. For example, Ulta and its shoppers value delivery speed, but VP of Distribution Mike Bogovich said the beauty retailer's customers especially care about delivery reliability and quality. He added that shopper satisfaction is better when the shipping experience is more predictable.
Dive Insight:
Same-day and next-day delivery options have been in the limelight this year, with major retailers like Walmart, Amazon and Target leading the charge through their in-house shipping capabilities. Other companies — including Ulta — are also growing their fast delivery toolkit through partnerships with DoorDash, Uber Eats and other providers.
But not every online order is urgent, particularly for products outside of categories like food and household essentials. For less time-sensitive shipments, consumers want predictability more so than speed, Home Delivery World 2026 speakers said.
"There's actually been a paradigm shift, where as long as customers know when they're going to get it, as long as they have good communication throughout the entire process, and they can trust the process, they're willing to trade speed for that kind of reliability," Jeff Wolpov, SVP of e-commerce and last mile at Ryder System, said. "That's what's really driving the business today in small parcel, as well as in big and bulky."
A 2024 McKinsey survey suggests the shift isn't a brand new development. Surveyed consumers ranked deliveries arriving in the promised arrival window as a higher preference than speed. Speed also plummeted from the top delivery priority in 2022 to the fifth-ranked priority in 2024.
For game and puzzle maker Buffalo Games and the company's subsidiaries, non-urgent items over $150 don't see a significant dip in customer conversion if the shipping time exceeds two days, Matt Krueger, SVP of digital commerce, analytics and technology, said during a panel. For example, shoppers aren't clamoring for next-day delivery of a pool table unless it's a last-minute Christmas gift idea, he added.
However, extended delivery timelines can suggest companies face other challenges under the hood, such as shipments needing to travel cross-country — a situation that can drive up transportation costs, Krueger noted.
"We're trying to figure out what's the best between the balance of price to pay for speed and price to pay for location and price to pay for the size of an item to get it there in a time that satisfies the consumer demand," Krueger said.
Additionally, while delivery reliability is an important factor for retailers to consider, shippers are still looking for ways to improve speed. For example, Macy's is pushing to increase automation within its distribution network to meet e-commerce customers' desire for speed and agility while closing older facilities, Pagliuca said.
"We've got to continue to put and invest in the supply chain side relative to automating and getting that speed to market from a product perspective," Pagliuca said.
