With ecommerce continuing to grow in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 ecommerce holiday season is expected to shatter all previous sales records. But, there are concerns on the horizon about shipping and fulfillment challenges.
You might be reading about the pending ecommerce holiday shipping challenges, such as this article from Modern Retail. CommerceNext is following this topic closely and we have two useful resources for our community:
- Original research completed earlier this month with data from a survey of 63 retail executives and 1,000+ consumers. You can download the 7-page CommerceNext Research Brief, which highlights all the findings.
- Webinar recording from our September 23rd webinar featuring the research mentioned above, as well as a discussion with the CEO of Cover FX, CMO of B&H Photo, former VP of Ecommerce & Digital at Theory and Helmut and the GM of Shipping at BigCommerce, where they share how they are preparing for the holiday shipping crisis and offer their advice and insights. Check out the replay here.
Some of the key insights from the research include:
- Consumer expectations for fast, free shipping are on a collision course with shipping surcharges and likely delivery caps;
- Delivery caps and surcharges from shippers lead retailers’ worry list in 2020;
- It will be an uphill battle for retailers to convince consumers to buy earlier;
- Curbside and buy-online-pickup-from-store popular with consumers and retailers; and
- Many retailers plan to increase the volume of shipments from store this year.
We want to offer a big THANK YOU to the retailers that took the survey earlier this month. We also want to thank Exponea and BigCommerce for sponsoring the research. Thank you also to BizRate Insights for making their consumer panel available for the shopper insights. Finally, thank you to Ken Cassar, Principal at CassarCo Strategy & Analytic Consultants for leading the survey development, analysis and writing of the research brief.
We hope these resources are timely and useful to you and wish you all the best during the upcoming online holiday shopping season.
