Online trade generates fewer CO2 emissions than shopping ‘in the high street’ while e-shoppers expect more convenience when it comes to shipping and returns of their online orders, two separate Hermes Germany surveys have shown.
This week, Hermes and parent company Otto Group presented the study "Climate-friendly shopping – a comparative study of e-commerce and traditional retail", conducted on their behalf by the independent research organisation German Clean Tech Institute (DCTI), at the e-commerce trade fair NeoCom in Düsseldorf.
The research refuted a widespread assumption that B2C deliveries are more harmful to the environment than brick and mortar business. On the contrary, it claimed that B2C deliveries from retailer to customer are more efficient and emit fewer greenhouse gases, even if taking into account the returns associated with e-parcel shipping.
The Hermes study revealed that a product purchased online generates on average fewer CO2 emissions than if a customer buys the same product at a traditional retail store. The study examined the transport routes of the products from the central warehouse to the customer considering different types of shoppers who have specific living and income situations and different behaviour patterns.
The positive result in favour of e-commerce is mainly due to the consolidated transport of shipments by the parcel operators serving several customers in one journey. The CO2 balance of these bundled deliveries is thus significantly better than the individual trips of each customer by car to the city centre.
The result is not quite as clear when it comes to shipping heavier goods (goods delivered to customers by two people). While the CO2 emissions through online trade are also lower in this case than those of the traditional retail, the differences are not as striking as in the case of parcel shipping. This is because of lower volumes which push up the average quantity of emissions per article.
“It was important to us to create transparency in the CO2 issue and to counter prejudices with facts,” explained Hanjo Schneider, Member of the Executive Board for Services at the Otto Group and CEO of Hermes Europe.
“Basically, the study shows that just avoiding unnecessary traffic can result in CO2 savings. That’s why we continue working hard on making our offering even more efficient. Alternative shipping options such as parcel shops, a ‘desired delivery’ product range, delivery within an exact time slot or parcel boxes help us reach our customers directly at the first attempt,” he added.
Right now, Hermes successfully delivers 96.3% of its parcels at the first attempt. To reach 100%, a collective engagement of clients, customers and also politicians is needed to set the right framework, Schneider said. “The study is in this sense an invitation to dialogue.”
In a separate logistics study, conducted in cooperation with the research institute ECC Cologne, Hermes examined the expectations of online shoppers when it comes to shipping and returns. The “ECC Logistics Study 2015: Success on the last mile” revealed that convenience is a key factor for B2C logistics and identified areas for improvement.
When it comes to returns, online shoppers need on average one day to decide whether to return their ordered item or not. To prepare the return shipment takes 29 minutes and 30 seconds on average. While around 89% of online shoppers were satisfied with their returns in the past, the individual steps to prepare the returns remain too time-consuming. In general, online shoppers are prepared to invest six and a half minutes to log in to the online shop. However, this step takes four minutes longer on average. The respondents also admitted that printing out the return label takes one and a half minutes too long.
To simplify returns, online shoppers would like to have return labels etc. already enclosed in their shipment. Thus, the majority of the respondents are neither willing to log in online to register the return shipment (61%) nor to print the return label themselves (48%). In addition, online shoppers wish to receive information on the return process (82%) and the nearby collection points (60%) directly with the shipment.
An even more recent trend to simplify returns for consumers are digital return labels that make it unnecessary to print out the label and enable the customer to create the label via smartphone instead. Nearly four out of ten consumers can imagine using such options.
"The delivery and return process is a critical success factor for an online store. The customer is the measure of all things. Recommendations to artificially complicate the returns process to reduce the return rate are therefore extremely dangerous," said Sabrina Mertens, head of ECC Cologne.
