Yodel is a delivery service company based in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...
, England.
It was originally known as the Home Delivery Network, until it acquired the
B2B and
B2C
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) or business-to-consumer (B2C) is the business model of selling products directly to customers and thereby bypassing any third-party retailers, wholesalers, or any other middlemen. Direct-to-consumer sales are usually tr ...
operations of
DHL Express
DHL is an American founded, German logistics company providing courier, package delivery and express mail service, which is a division of the German logistics firm Deutsche Post. The company group delivers over 1.8 billion parcels per year. DH ...
UK and thereafter, rebranded itself as Yodel in May 2010. It is privately owned by the billionaire
Frederick Barclay
Sir David Rowat Barclay (27 October 1934 – 10 January 2021) and Sir Frederick Hugh Barclay (born 27 October 1934), commonly referred to as the "Barclay Brothers" or "Barclay Twins", were British billionaires. They were identical twin brothers ...
.
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History
Home Delivery Network operated as the logistics division of The Very Group
The Very Group is a multi-brand online retailer and financial services provider in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its head offices are based in the Speke area of the city of Liverpool, England. The brand was established in November 2005 as a re ...
, until it demerged in June 2008. It was formed by the merger of Business Express and Reality, the former Littlewoods and Shop Direct delivery companies respectively. Yodel has sorting hubs at Shaw, Hatfield and Wednesbury, and over 45 delivery depots across the UK.
In December 2011, the ''London Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'' carried a story on reports of packages from Yodel being lost or not delivered on time for Christmas. Yodel said that there had been a great increase in December deliveries over the previous two years and that Yodel had delivered over twenty million packages that month, with 999 out of 1000 being delivered on time.
In March 2012, the BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
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...
'' consumer programme broadcast a segment highly critical of Yodel. In January 2014, Yodel was voted as the worst delivery service in the United Kingdom for the second consecutive year. BBC Watchdog says that it continued to regularly receive reports of bad service after the re branding to Yodel.
In January 2014, Yodel was named the "worst parcel delivery firm" in a poll by
, of 9,000 people, with 78% of customers rating their experience negatively. Despite this, Yodel continues to be the delivery company of choice for many major retailers in the United Kingdom, largely due to the company's low prices.
The company apologised in November 2015, after one of the firm's couriers had left a parcel on the roof of a customer's home. In February 2016, Yodel was featured in a ''
''.
The investigation was entitled ''Where's My Missing Mail?''. The programme sent an undercover reporter to work at Yodel’s Shaw depot as a sorter. The investigation highlighted how parcels had been thrown onto conveyor belts and even thrown between staff members. In May 2019, Yodel announced it would spend £15.2m on its fleet, to reduce the environmental impact of its delivery operations.