Tech Tuesday: Consumers Would Forfeit Discounts for Faster Delivery Times

This week we get a glimpse of the consumer mindset from a Radial survey that showed holiday shoppers would forfeit discounts if they could get their packages on time. The survey also revealed a strong consumer preference for faster delivery times.

We also hear that Driptail, the social shopping app, has seen the number of users grow significantly. In other news, we learn that AfterShip turned mounds of data into an actionable solution that turns post-purchase processes from a cost center into something that generates revenue.

Solving a key fashion frustration

Driptail, the body-inclusive social shopping app, marked a key milestone: The company said the number of users on the app has grown 60 times. The growth was from April through to July. Driptail said it enables users “to shop outfits on real people who share their exact build, directly targeting the sizing guesswork that drives $40 billion in U.S. apparel returns annually, where fit issues account for 75 percent of returns.”

The company is funded by Love x Money Ventures and said in a statement that it is building off of a standard affiliate model. Driptail said it “uniquely offers a founding circle of diverse style creators equity, as vested ‘creatorpreneurs.’”

Driptail said it solves the Internet’s biggest fashion frustration, which is a shopper seeing a stunning outfit online, buying it and realizing it looks completely different on their own body. “Most brands online display clothes modeled on a single body type (usually with runway model dimensions), which forces consumers to guess how an item will fit them,” the company said. “Unlike this approach, Driptail shows how that item actually looks on real people of different body sizes and shapes, so users don’t have to order multiple sizes just to see which one fits.”

Mark Weinberger, Driptail founder and chief executive officer, said in partnership with Love x Money Ventures and the founding creators, “Driptail is redefining how people discover and shop for clothes. We’ve built a dedicated platform where matching your body type to real style creators makes fashion discovery seamless, inclusive, and more sustainable.”

The initial equity-holding roster includes influencers and fashion industry notables Alicia McCarvell, Maddy Gustini and Lydia Okello. “By offering creators ownership stakes, we’re doubling down on our belief that Driptail’s value is in styling real people, despite the proliferation of faulty AI styling apps and tools,” Weinberger said. “We’re creating a community for creators and shoppers with diverse body types left behind by most fashion brands and influencer shopping platforms.”

McCarvell said that Driptail is the future of fashion because it centers real bodies and real ownership. “I joined as an equity holder because I believe in a world where shopping is inclusive, transparent, and driven by community—not unrealistic standards. We’re rewriting the rules of the fashion industry and the creator economy at the same time.”

Paid creator applications are now live within the app. Driptail said it has secured partnerships with major affiliate networks and is offering over 4,000 eligible brands from which the approved creators can earn, including Zadig & Voltaire, Malbon Golf, Soludos, Thigh Society, Vim & Vigr and L’amour Des Pieds.

Turning post-purchase from a cost center into a revenue engine

AfterShip, the post-purchase platform, has launched AfterShip Intelligence, which brings agentic automation and predictive intelligence to post-purchase tracking, returns and shipping.

AfterShip said that since 2012, the company has operated behind the scenes of e-commerce, powering shipping, tracking and returns for 20,000-plus brands globally. In that time, the company generated the largest post-purchase dataset in the industry, which includes 14 years of proprietary data spanning over 11 billion shipments, approximately 110 billion delivery checkpoints, and more than 1,400 carriers—all standardized into a single engine.

“That is the foundation behind AfterShip Intelligence, a suite of proprietary domain models purpose-built for delivery prediction, exception forecasting, and return intelligence—not general-purpose AI adapted for retail,” the company said in a statement. “With AfterShip Intelligence, retailers can now automate operational work, identify problems before customers experience them and turn every order into an opportunity to protect and grow revenue.”

The company said launch partners Dr. Squatch and Naked Wardrobe are seeing measurable results with AfterShip Intelligence. The company said since deploying AfterShip Agent for exception handling, Dr. Squatch “has improved exception resolution time by more than 58 percent and reduced its most frequent ‘where is my order’ tickets by 25 percent, while driving a 42 percent lift in positive sentiment on agent-initiated conversations, as the agent handles more customer interactions.”

The company said Dr. Squatch also deployed AfterShip’s predictive delivery tools in weeks, “compared with the four-plus months required by its previous provider, achieving 94 percent on-time estimated delivery accuracy across 99.98 percent of orders.”

For Naked Wardrobe, where the agent is deployed for RMA Review, the company said return reviews that previously took 5 to 10 minutes are now roughly 40 percent faster.

Moving post-purchase from a cost center to a revenue generator is not only about the money. The AfterShip solutions create an improved shopping experience, which helps maintain customer loyalty.

Joan Park, senior customer experience analyst at Dr. Squatch, said AfterShip Intelligence gives the brand’s team “the context and automation to resolve delivery issues more efficiently, while keeping our focus on delivering a great customer experience. It’s an important step toward making post-purchase a more intelligent part of the customer journey.”

Teddy Chan, founder and CEO at AfterShip, said, “For years, post-purchase has been treated as a cost center, but it’s one of the most valuable moments in the customer journey. As customer acquisition gets more expensive, brands can’t afford to treat tracking and returns as back-office operations. We built AfterShip Intelligence to automate the work that slows teams down, predict issues before customers feel them and give operators AI they can trust because they stay in control.”

Jackie Avila, head of customer service at Naked Wardrobe, said AfterShip Intelligence features help the company “automate the straightforward decisions while giving our team the context they need when a return requires a closer look. As AI becomes a bigger part of retail operations, this is the kind of practical automation that can make a meaningful difference for both teams and customers.”

Holiday shoppers prioritize delivery certainty over discounts

A new survey from retail-e-commerce-logic-enabling company Radial Inc. revealed that 70 percent of holiday shoppers said they would give up discounts in order to receive their packages on time, which is up from 61 percent in last year’s poll.

In the company’s annual Peak Season Consumer Survey, 78 percent of consumers polled said that when comparing similar products at the same price, shipping fastest was most important.

While discounts are consumers’ number one motivator for beginning to shop for holiday gifts early, guaranteed delivery dates, products that are in stock and flexible returns are also extremely important drivers of early shopping, according to the Peak Season survey.

That’s why Radial’s CEO Tom Schmitt said retailers can earn customers’ trust by linking their promotions with the retailer’s ability to deliver on its operational promises. With the challenges of supply chains and higher prices on retailers’ hands, shoppers are highly attuned to these considerations and can be swayed by retailers who demonstrate their ability to deliver on time and as promised.

However, nearly seven in ten (67 percent) of respondents said they completely trust a retailer’s delivery promise. If a retailer cannot deliver on this promise, however, visibility into where and when a shipment is can help to salvage the situation. In fact, 28 percent of online shoppers said that they would likely switch to an alternative online channel such as Amazon or Walmart.com if they were unable to get adequate tracking information from a retailer’s website.

The company said transparency in fulfillment is key to locking on sales during the holiday season and building customer loyalty.