Over the past 20 years, e-commerce has become indispensable for consumers across the world. And, as ecommerce has accelerated, so have customers’ expectations.
Many shoppers now expect the service they receive online to rival, or exceed, the in-store experience.
Some companies have thrived in their expansion into ecommerce. But many others have struggled. Why? Excelling in ecommerce not only requires a great website, marketing, and communication but also great e-logistics. To better understand businesses’ ecommerce logistics challenges,
Accenture and GEODIS recently surveyed 200 large US and European firms across nine industries. (We surveyed only retail and consumer-goods brands with both a presence online and on the high street.) Two big findings emerge from our research.
The first is hardly a surprise: the pandemic has brought about huge changes in where brands make their sales. Pre-crisis, the firms we surveyed achieved thirty-four percent of their sales online, on average - twenty-eight percent in marketplaces, such as Amazon, and six percent on their own websites.
During lockdowns, online sales doubled – direct online sales quadrupled.
Companies expect this shift, especially in selling directly on their own websites, to endure long beyond the crisis: sixty-four percent of surveyed firms believe that direct online selling will account for at least twenty percent of total sales within the next three years.
The second finding is that a majority of companies (fifty-two percent) believe that their ecommerce potential is hamstrung by their logistical capabilities. That’s why many have turned to online marketplaces, which help brands fulfill their e-commerce orders in exchange for hefty fees.
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