E-commerce booming ‘despite delivery issues’

Written by Chris Lemmon

19/06/2017

Business is booming for e-commerce retailers, but there remains room for improvement when considering delivery, a new survey has found.

The Peoplevox study found that 82 per cent of e-commerce and multichannel businesses had reported an increase in orders from 2016, while only six per cent reported a decline. Despite many voicing concerns over increasing competition, Brexit and currency fluctuations, 88 per cent expected a further increase in orders during 2017.

However, 63 per cent admitted to not always shipping on time with 34 per cent citing the unavailability of stock as a key reason. When it comes to rectifying shipping errors, eight in 10 respondents appear accepting of the additional carriage, customer service and warehouse labour expenses as an inevitable cost of order fulfilment.

Furthermore, 78 per cent of businesses questioned also found meeting the additional demand for orders at peak times an ongoing challenge in 2016, with just over half resorting to hiring temporary staff. Paying overtime to existing staff and pulling in staff from other parts of the business were other common solutions.

Jonathan Bellwood, founder and CEO of Peoplevox, commented: “While it is encouraging to see so many survey respondents reporting continuing sales growth, which is broadly in line with figures for the online retailing sector as a whole, our report has identified a number of growing pains. These will become increasingly challenging for businesses as they continue to expand rapidly.”