Black Friday and Cyber Monday officially ushered in the Christmas shopping season, kicking off the ‘black month’ of logistics, which at this time of year is under greater stress to cope with the growing demands of e-shoppers.
Expectations for Christmas 2021
The trend of online Christmas shopping is confirmed by the data from Salesforce’s Shopping Index 2021, which reports that in the third quarter of 2021 Italy outperformed the global figure (+11%) for global digital commerce by +15%.
Expectations for the Christmas period are therefore very high. According to Salesforce forecasts, in fact, global digital trade for the months of November and December is expected to grow by 7% to $1.2 trillion. Last year, the increase in online sales over the Christmas period compared to 2019 was 30 per cent.
Indeed, the growth of digital commerce globally will be driven by a 20% increase in retail prices, despite the fact that the total number of orders is expected to decline by -2%.
Moreover, 36% of early shoppers plan to increase their overall spending in the run-up to Christmas, while 53% of consumers, according to the Ebay Christmas Report, plan to support local businesses and neighbourhood shops for their gifts, as small shops enjoy better last-mile coverage.
But how many people will actually buy Christmas presents online in December?
According to data from Jungle Scout’s Q3 2021 Consumer Trends Report, only 10 per cent of digital consumers will cut back to the last minute to buy gifts, while 31 per cent have already started their Christmas shopping since last October and 24 per cent have taken advantage of the unmissable late November Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals to get ahead of the game with thoughts for loved ones.
Preferred delivery methods
Looking at last year’s data, a very interesting fact emerges: 56% of the consumers interviewed by Facebook said in 2020 that they would like to take advantage of the so-called ‘Click&Collect’, i.e. the possibility of ordering online and collecting directly in shop.
The solution has several advantages in practical terms as well as in terms of cost and environmental sustainability. Thanks to Click&Collect, in fact, the consumer can choose to organise the collection of his order at the point of sale and at a time that is most convenient for him, reducing delivery costs and limiting the risk of delays that can easily arise with classic home delivery, especially in a congested period for logistics such as the one we are about to face.
From the point of view of environmental sustainability, moreover, this delivery method guarantees lower CO2 emissions and limits congestion in urban areas due to the increase in the number of vans for last-mile deliveries.
In short, a great way to give a nice Christmas present to the environment as well.
The organisation of logistics
The growth of Click&Collect and the use of Pick-up Points and Lockers for the collection of goods ordered online is simply proof of how important it is for consumers to be able to receive their online orders quickly and without having to collect them, especially at this time of year when timeliness and punctuality are essential to avoid the risk of Father Christmas arriving empty-handed.
Logistics, therefore, play an increasingly fundamental role for eCommerce, which must know how to organise its shipments efficiently, all the more so for Christmas 2021, which promises to be very complex for the logistics sector due to the many difficulties the sector is facing.
For their part, eCommerce companies can best organise themselves so that their customers are not left disappointed or empty-handed during the Christmas period. According to the Salesforce report, for example, last year online shops that offered pick-up options via Proximity Pick-up Points and Lockers saw a 54 per cent growth in sales.
How can you integrate Proximity logistics solutions into your eCommerce channel?
The answer is GEL Proximity, a platform that aggregates thousands of Pick-up Points and Lockers throughout the country for both deliveries and returns – the latter typically increasing after the Christmas period.
If you are an eCommerce operator and want to be ready for the Christmas period by integrating your Pick-up Points, contact us now.
