E-commerce home delivery market could grow by US$540 billion by 2025, Metapack report predicts

The Ecommerce Delivery Benchmark report, which was undertaken in partnership with research consultancy Retail Economics, was launched during The Delivery Conference (TDC) 2022 held earlier this week and highlights how a new wave of ‘digital shifters’ and home working during the global pandemic will support significant growth in the e-commerce and delivery sectors.

The report covers more than 6,000 consumers across four countries, including the US, UK, France, and Germany. In the UK, online is expected to account for 49.7% of total non-food sales by 2025 amid persistent home working. For the US this figure is 30.6%, while for Germany and France it is 28.2% and 32.3%, respectively.

Delivery cost, speed and convenience

The report also highlighted consumers’ top priorities for delivery when shopping online. The cost of delivery is the most important factor to shoppers (27.4%), with speed (26.6%) and convenience (23%) second and third. And while sustainability is rising on many people’s agendas, only 6.9% considered the carbon footprint of their delivery important when shopping online.

According to the report, 58% of consumers are more willing to delay delivery times for a greener delivery than they are to pay to offset the environmental impact of delivery. Younger consumers, meanwhile, are twice as likely to pay to offset delivery emissions compared to the 55+ age group. Across all four countries, around a third of shoppers would switch from home to out-of-home delivery if it was cheaper.

Duncan Licence, VP of Global Product at Metapack, said: “Driven by the pandemic, online consumer shopping expectations have changed significantly over the past few years, and a lot of these changes are here to stay. Our new report takes a closer look at these developments and their lasting impact on both consumers and retailers. It is expected that, as home working becomes the norm for more and more people, their appetite for fast, convenient, and easy deliveries that fit their lifestyle, will continue to increase.”

Source: CEP-Research