The publicity boost appears to have been the main gain for the company, Shopbox Systems Ltd, since none of the dragons decided to invest. However, one of them, Peter Jones, appeared ready to commit £1 million (four times the amount requested) until he discovered that a rival offer of £200,000 from external investors was pending, and that the company was not prepared to disclose any details about this.

Stuart Archbold, the main spokesman and head of the parent group, said around £1 million had already been invested in the project. A key attraction was that the system was protected by various patents, and he vigorously defended their scope and robustness during a sometimes heated session with the dragons.

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In anticipation of an autumn launch for its online UK retail service, Best Buy UK, the US company that now owns a half-share in Carphone Warehouse, has started using a multi-channel fulfilment suite from Axida across its emerging operations.

The company is using a version of Axida HDi that has been specially tailored to its requirements by Axida in association with Best Buy’s logistics partner, Wincanton. A key function is to provide accurate and achievable delivery schedules to customers and to Best Buy’s in-store team, the Blueshirts.

Other benefits such as multi-channel order capture, comprehensive order management and day-of-delivery tracking are likely to come into their own as the online operation is rolled out.

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IDIS Gold Standard, a brand new standard for home delivery performance, went live in May, setting a new benchmark for e-retailers.

Whilst covering a variety of aspects of the delivery process, the standard focuses above all on one fundamental point: the likelihood that first-time delivery will succeed.

As the explanatory material puts it: 'The IDIS Gold standard is designed to enable e-retailers to offer their customers the probability of 100 per cent first-time delivery success.'

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Inefficient and failed home deliveries cost Britain around £1 billion a year. That's the stark reality confirmed by a detailed new report from IMRG entitled Valuing Home Delivery.

The costs are divided almost evenly among the three main home delivery stakeholders – carriers (36 per cent), consumers (33 per cent) and retailers (30 per cent).

The report actually comes up with a figure of £792 million as the specific cost of delivery failure, but it points out that this figure is conservative.

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Littlewoods has included the option of using the Collect+ high-street drop-off services as one of the delivery options in the latest version of its retail web site. It is making no charge for leaving goods at one of the Collect+ locations.

Littlewoods is part of Shop Direct, which in turn is associated with HDN, which launched Collect+ in partnership with PayPoint. Shop Direct has already embraced the concept with enthusiasm.

Littlewoods offers free delivery as standard on most products, but offers next-day, nominated-day and Saturday deliveries for a flat fee of £6.95 in each case.

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Next Directory has reappointed Hermes to handle its home deliveries in an eight-year deal described as the biggest ever in the UK.

Neither of the companies was prepared to tell us the actual value of the contract, but we are assured that it is of significant proportions. An indication of its scale can be seen in the fact that Next Directory turns over £800 million, and has 2.2 million active customers.

Hermes' relationship with Next dates back to 1988, and over the years it has involved the fulfilment operations of various Otto Group constituent companies such as Grattan and later Parcelnet.

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