The team at www.Versapak.co.uk polled a total of 1,829 British adults about their experience of delivery services, while a further 306 individuals currently employed as UK delivery drivers were asked a separate set of questions during the study.
When asked if they had ever discovered that an item had been broken or damaged during delivery, almost a third (32%) of respondents stated that they had received damaged goods.
When questioned on how often goods carried in their vehicles became damaged or harmed during transportation, the majority of delivery drivers (54%) admitted this happened at least once a month. A further 21% revealed that, due to the fragile nature of cargo they transport, damage to goods occurs as often as once a day or more.
To find out what was causing this damage, the drivers who had sustained damaged loads were asked to identify all the causes behind the problems they had experienced. 64% confessed that the cracks and potholes of British roads were to blame for the accidental damages, followed by inappropriate packaging of products (51%) and clumsy loading of the vehicle (24%).
Furthermore, of the professional van and lorry drivers polled, over half (58%) disclosed to researchers that they believe that the packaging measures put in place regarding deliveries need to be improved in order to improve customer satisfaction.
Commenting on the findings, Leon Edwards, group managing director of Versapak, said: ‘When taking into account the shocking state of some UK roads and motorways, as well as the amount of pot-holes scattered around, the results of the study do not necessarily surprise me!
Here at Versapak, we are calling on companies to invest in durable and protective transport bags for the transportation of high value goods, in a bid to decrease the amount of damage occurring on UK roads at present.’