In 2023, eCommerce in Italy will reach the value of 54 billion euros, 13 percent more than in 2022. The data come directly from the latest survey of the eCommerce B2c Netcomm Observatory – School of Management Politecnico di Milano presented just a few weeks ago at Netcomm Forum. Specifically, online product purchases will experience an 8 percent increase and will be worth 35.2 billion, with Apparel, Beauty and Computing among the most dynamic sectors (up about 10 percent).
Although the number of online shoppers is not expected to increase this year, stable at around 33 million, eCommerce will therefore continue its growth. In light of the increased demand for eCommerce, it is therefore evident that logistics, particularly last-mile logistics, is taking on an increasingly central role within the purchasing process.
Logistics guides consumers’ purchasing choices
Suffice it to say that a good delivery service is considered by 12.7 percent of eShoppers to be one of the main drivers of online purchases in Italy. For their part, eCommerce companies are moving in the direction of increasingly efficient logistics to increase sales. “The current distribution system – reads the research “Logistics for eCommerce in the Milan area” by Assolombarda and Politecnico di Milano, must be renewed to meet the new needs of customers, guaranteeing the cost-effectiveness of the service offered. This can be ensured by reducing missed deliveries and increasing delivery density per vehicle. In fact, many merchants and couriers struggle to achieve the right trade-off between the level of service required by customers and the associated costs to be incurred. In addition, the efficiency of logistics activities is key to meeting new challenges in the area of sustainability and reducing pollutant gas emissions.”
Last mile: all the solutions to reduce the number of missed deliveries
For all these reasons, alternative delivery solutions are being developed: in addition to Locker, Pickup Points and Click & Collect for online order pickup, it is indeed crucial to find solutions to make traditional Home Delivery (which remains – for the moment – the preferred delivery solution for consumers) more effective and sustainable as well.
Some trends of particular interest are Real-time tracking, In-home delivery and geo-located deliveries. Let’s find out what these are.
Real-time tracking
Delivery status tracking is a service that more and more consumers are demanding. Let’s be honest, none of us has ever enjoyed anxiously waiting for the courier to arrive without knowing when he or she will peep at our doorstep. Therefore, this service offers the consumer to view the location of the package, thus being able to have an idea of when the delivery will actually take place and be ready for that moment, avoiding the inconvenience of the courier’s arrival just when you are away from home.
On the other hand, real-time tracking requires a large amount of data to correctly estimate delivery times based on location and could also generate privacy issues.
In-home delivery
To overcome the problem of the customer’s absence at home, one certainly interesting solution is In-home delivery: a type of home delivery in which products are delivered to the customer’s home despite his or her absence thanks to the presence of an electronic lock and a one-time password that the courier can use to access the home.
This is a service that has already been present abroad for a number of years but in Italy still struggles to find its way due to the lack of consumer trust-despite the fact that a connected camera that records what happens from the moment the door is opened to the next time it is closed is also normally installed-, the scarcity of technological infrastructure in homes capable of enabling the delivery activity.
Therefore, to enable its wider deployment, a number of variants have recently emerged that allow delivery to locations other than the home, such as in the garage or car trunk, so as to reduce possible consumer concerns.
Geolocated deliveries
This type of delivery actually reverses the recipient of Real-time tracking: instead of tracking the package, in fact, it is the customer who is located within a macro-area of reference through the GPS of the cell phone where he or she is reached by the courier and delivered.
This is undoubtedly an innovative solution, but it also lends itself to obvious drawbacks related to privacy and the real-time use of data to properly manage routing.
If the solution is already at hand
The lowest common denominator of all the possible solutions analyzed to reduce the number of missed deliveries is therefore the flexibility offered to the consumer for package delivery, offering the possibility of knowing the exact time when the delivery will take place or being reached wherever they are. Solutions that often run into privacy issues, however.
Online order pickup at Locker and Pickup Points or in Click & Collect mode easily solves both problems by offering the consumer the ability to choose where and when to pick up the package according to his or her needs and without generating problems related to data sharing and thus privacy. At the same time, the problem of non-delivery is also solved. Reasons why Out Of Home deliveries are also on the rise in Italy: in fact, from 2014 to 2023 they increased by 7.3 percent of total product purchases, reaching 15.9 percent.
The solution to the problem, therefore, is already at hand (or courier).
But how to integrate Lockers and Pickup Points to one’s online store?
The answer comes from Gel Proximity: the world’s first technology that places Last Mile Logistics at the center of the purchasing process, directly managing the relationship between checkout and the Proximity solution chosen for the pickup or return of a package. In fact, thanks to GEL Proximity you can integrate over 125,000 already active Pickup Points and Lockers throughout the country and internationally to your online store.
Contact us to find out more!
