Update #3 – Tamebay Black Friday Speed Test 2021

The annual Tamebay 2021 Black Friday Speed Test is almost complete. It’s our annual small scale test of the resilience of deliveries over the Black Friday period, at 9.30am on Black Friday morning we placed 15 orders split across the largest three UK general marketplaces – Amazon, eBay and OnBuy, and this is Update #3 based the the statuses this Sunday.

Update #3 confirms that retailers are being over pessimistic with extended delivery times – even the mighty Amazon with the advantage of FBA delivered their five orders a total of 13 days ahead of the promised delivery dates – 2.6 days early on average.

OnBuy retailers delivered 18 days early in total – an average of 3.6 days early per delivery.

eBay retailers averaged out so far at ontime delivery, but the range was five days early to five days late. It’s worth pointing out that the retailer that delivered 5 days late had superb communications and kept us informed that the order was running late.

There is one outstanding order from eBay, shipping from China, with a vast delivery estimation of anywhere from the 15th of December to the 1st of February. We’ll do a final update when this order arrives!

Overall, a tentative conclusion would be that the industry is running well with volumes not exceeding carriers capability to deliver. Consumers are more savvy spreading out their purchases and carriers have over the past years become more stringent with retailers demanding forecasts and ensuring that don’t go over capacity.

Update #3 – Black Friday Speed Test 2021