Couriers

The D2C Shifts Worth Watching – April Roundup

3PL, Couriers, Move Fresh News / By
Market Demand

Demand is still there, but the mood has shifted. UK online retail remains resilient, and non-store retail is still growing, but shoppers are behaving more cautiously and more deliberately than they were even a few months ago. ONS said online sales values rose 2.4% month on month and 10.5% year on year in March, while the share of retail spend online moved up to 28.7%.[1] For D2C brands, that means the channel is healthy, but conversion is being earned through clearer value, tighter offers, and better delivery propositions rather than broad consumer confidence.

That same pattern showed up more clearly in grocery-adjacent behaviour during April. Worldpanel by Numerator reported take-home grocery sales up 0.9% in the four weeks to 19 April 2026, with promoted spend up 7.8% year on year and promotions now accounting for 31.3% of grocery spending.[2] In plain terms: customers are still buying, but they are actively hunting for reassurance. That usually benefits brands with strong hero SKUs, obvious product benefits, and a disciplined promotional plan. It is less forgiving for brands relying on full-price impulse or unclear differentiation.

Cost Pressures

Cost pressure has not gone away either. ONS said food and non-alcoholic beverage inflation rose to 3.7% in the 12 months to March 2026, up from 3.3% in February, while fuel was a major driver of broader inflation pressure.[3] That matters operationally because it tends to work through both shopper sensitivity and fulfilment cost over the following weeks. I would treat May as a margin-control month, not a volume-chasing month.

Carrier cost pressure also widened this month, and it is no longer just a Royal Mail story. Royal Mail’s new pricing took effect on 7 April 2026 across domestic parcel contract products, international account products, and surcharges.[4] Its business parcel surcharge page still shows an 11% fuel and energy surcharge on key parcel services and 8% for Parcelforce Worldwide services.[5] Outside Royal Mail, the tone is similar: DHL Express’s UK 4.9% annual price increase has been in force since 1 January 2026,[6] UPS introduced a new surge fee from 8 March 2026 on selected lanes plus a pre-release notification fee from 12 April 2026 for certain customs-clearance issues,[7] and FedEx applied a temporary increase to its domestic Additional Handling Surcharge from £12.95 to £13.95 per parcel effective 23 March to 8 May 2026.[8] Evri is still presenting itself as the lower-cost value option in market-facing pricing, rather than signalling a notable April public tariff step-up.[9] The practical read-across is that shipping inflation is now broad-based enough to assume continued pressure across most carrier mixes, even where changes are landing through surcharges and handling fees rather than base-rate headlines.

Channel-wise, there is also a steady structural signal worth keeping in view. Amazon continues to push further into UK online grocery, framing Britain as a highly developed online grocery market and expanding its store and partnership footprint.[10] For most food, drink, and health brands, that does not mean “sell on Amazon at all costs.” It means consumer expectations around convenience, availability, and repeat-order ease are continuing to rise. Brands that make replenishment clunky or delivery value hard to understand are likely to feel that pressure first.

Brand and Product Claims

For supplement and wellness brands, claims risk remains very real. MHRA published its latest advertising investigations on 10 April 2026,[11] and the ASA’s recent supplements guidance again makes clear that unauthorised health claims, exaggerated benefits, and medicinal-style claims remain red-flag territory.[12] That does not just affect compliance. It affects paid acquisition efficiency too, because the brands under pressure are often the same ones leaning hardest on aggressive promise-led creative.

Immediate actions
  • Review shipping thresholds, bundle logic, and subscription economics .
  • Lock in cut-off messaging early for the 4 May 2026 and 25 May 2026 bank holidays, especially for short-shelf-life products or promo-led campaigns.[13]
  • Recheck top-selling supplement and wellness SKUs for claims language across PDPs, inserts, paid social, and email flows.
  • Plan promotions around margin and stock depth, not just topline demand, because shoppers are clearly more offer-responsive than full-price confident.
How Move Fresh can help

We can help clients reset dispatch calendars around May bank holidays, pressure-test carrier and service mixes after the latest changes, and position stock more intelligently around promotion windows and repeat-order peaks. For health brands, we can also help reduce avoidable operational friction by making sure fulfilment touchpoints, inserts, and customer messaging stay aligned with tighter claims discipline.

References
[1] ONS, Retail sales, Great Britain: March 2026 (24 April 2026): https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/retailindustry/bulletins/retailsales/march2026
[2] Worldpanel by Numerator, British shoppers hunt for deals amid Middle East uncertainty (28 April 2026): https://worldpanelbynumerator.com/insights/british-shoppers-hunt-for-deals-amid-middle-east-uncertainty
[3] ONS, Consumer price inflation, UK: March 2026 (22 April 2026): https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/consumerpriceinflation/march2026
[4] Royal Mail, Prices 2026 effective 7 April 2026: https://www.royalmail.com/prices2026
[5] Royal Mail, Surcharges and Correction Charges: https://www.royalmail.com/business/mail/surcharges
[6] DHL Express UK, Annual price adjustments for 2026 in the UK (26 September 2025; effective 1 January 2026): https://www.dhl.com/gb-en/home/press/press-archive/2025/dhl-express-announces-annual-price-adjustments-fo-2026-in-the-uk.html
[7] UPS UK, Shipping Costs and Zones: https://www.ups.com/gb/en/support/shipping-support/shipping-costs-rates
[8] FedEx UK, Shipping Rates & Tariffs: https://www.fedex.com/en-gb/shipping/rates/fedex-rates.html
[9] Evri, Our Prices: https://www.evri.com/our-services/our-prices
[10] Amazon UK, Amazon UK plans increased focus on online grocery delivery : https://www.aboutamazon.co.uk/news/retail/amazon-uk-online-grocery-delivery-amazon-fresh
[11] MHRA, Advertising investigations: March 2026 (10 April 2026): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advertising-investigations-march-2026–2
[12] ASA, Food, Food Supplements & Health Claims factsheet: https://www.asa.org.uk/static/3f5715ce-9cb4-4aba-9b249f6eb8859caf/Factsheet-for-MLM-Sellers-Food-Food-Supplements-Health-Claims.pdf
[13] Royal Mail, Service Update including May 2026 bank holidays: https://www.royalmail.com/service-update

Talk to our team about how we can build a solution for your brand at www.movefresh.com/contact/

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DHL and Move Fresh Partnership

3PL, Couriers / By

Ewan Reid spoke with DHL about how our partnership technology provides reliability and transparency for our clients.

DHL have been our main delivery partner since 2010 and have provided a good service at a competitive price. They also have great support for food and drink clients, including an ability to handle liquids, alcohol along with chilled and frozen.

The full case study and interview is on the DHL website:

Watch the full interview.

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Parcelforce driver with van

Parcelforce joining our courier network

Couriers / By

We’re delighted to announce that we can now offer Parcelforce to our clients as an additional courier option. Parcelforce have some unique capabilities.

They are owned by Royal Mail and have great access to the Post Office network. It’s usually much more convenient for customers to be able to pick up from their local Post Office rather than having to go to a more remote courier depot.

Parcelforce are one of the small number of couriers who have an age verification service which is important for clients selling alcohol.

They are also a great choice for consignments. You can ship a consignment of up to 15 parcels to the same address and benefit from a reduced consignment rate.

For even bigger deliveries they have a partnership with Palletways for pallets. This is currently our only service for pallet shipments.

Finally, Parcelforce have a Sunday delivery option which is useful if you want to offer delivery to your customers every day of the week to fit in with their lifestyles.

You can use our Courier Rules Engine to select Parcelforce automatically for your shipments where they are the best option.

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Getting the best out of your courier

Couriers / By

Trustpilot is full of very negative stories about couriers – some of them are very funny! But as a 3PL the relationship with the courier is absolutely vital, and all like all relationships it is very much two-way. In this article I will cover how to get great performance out of your courier.

Starting with the customer order on your ecommerce store, the most obvious thing to get right is the delivery address. Here in the UK the thing to do is to get the address entered to match the Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) but all other countries have a similar database. An accurate address means your 3PL will be able to create a courier label without problems and that the delivery driver will be able to find your customer. Royal Mail will also give discounts for volume clients providing the delivery addresses have a high level of accuracy.

The good news is that fast and accurate address entry is also likely to improve your conversion rate by cutting down the typing your customer has to do. We are particular fans of Loqate who have a brilliant global address lookup and verification system. Many of our clients use Shopify who use the Google Address Validation API which is also pretty good.

Royal Mail and some couriers will also offer discounts if the parcels are sorted before dispatch. We have the Royal Mail sortation plan and the sort plans of the couriers that require them, so we can do this for you.

Next, you need to get the parcel collected and injected into the courier network. If you are shipping a small number of parcels this is incredibly easy. As you get into larger numbers of parcels involving multiple vans (for collection by the courier depot) or trunks (for collection to the courier hub) then it gets a bit more difficult.

The good news is that all the couriers we work with have enormous capacity, the trick is simply that they need to be given a forecast in advance and they can ensure the capacity is there. However if they are suddenly presented with an extra 20,000 parcels with no notice then there may well be a delay on collection. In certain circumstances, such as one-off promotions or high volumes on days the couriers are closed, we will occasionally arrange our own trunks and directly inject them to the courier hub for you but again we will require advance notice to do this.

The next thing we want to do is to ensure that the parcel is delivered first time. If the courier has a failed delivery and has to come back to try again, then that will dramatically increase the cost of the delivery. If your account has a high level of failed deliveries then you may have to pay a higher rate, and conversely a very high level of first time deliveries puts you in a great position to negotiate down your rate.

There are four methods to improve your first time delivery rate.

  1. You can encourage your customer to ship to their work address. It is always much more reliable to ship to a business address because there is nearly always somebody in to receive a parcel during standard hours.
  2. If that’s not possible then suggest your customer leaves delivery instructions in case they are out. This is usually a safe place in which the parcel can be left or can be a neighbour. If you are shipping alcohol or high value products then this will not be possible because you will require a signature.
  3. It is a good idea to offer Saturday delivery. Many people work Monday to Friday so a Saturday delivery is more likely to get them in. There is likely to be a small increased fee for Saturday but you can often pass this on to your customer.
  4. Make sure you supply the customer’s email address or phone number (ideally both). This can then be used for a Pre-Delivery Notification (PDN). With our main courier, DHL Parcel, this will mean your customer is texted a two-hour delivery window and if that is not suitable they will be given the opportunity to reschedule the delivery to another day. This is the single most important tip and will dramatically improve your first time delivery rates.

Finally, you should review courier performance on a monthly basis. We will measure the delivery performance and reasons for failed deliveries and give you a monthly report which we will discuss with the couriers for you.

By following this advice you will improve your customer experience, make things easier for your courier and save money too.

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