Parcel volumes generated by online retail sales in the UK grew strongly by 18.9% (year-on-year) in September, with the year-to-date growth now exceeding the 2015 forecast by the British e-commerce association IMRG made in the beginning of this year.
In August, the cumulative growth figure hit 13% – which was exactly in line with the forecast for this year – and reached 13.6% this month thus going beyond the expectations, the latest monthly IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index has shown.
“The trend line for 2015 is now once again exactly in parallel with that of 2014, giving considerable confidence in our projections for the rest of the year, and there are indications that the growth rate is building as we move into the peak shopping period,” IMRG said.
The association explained that a month-on-month fall between August and September is the established trend, but this year the fall was only -2.8% compared to a sharper drop of -3.5% last year possibly suggesting a stronger peak for orders than in 2014.
Andrew Starkey, head of e-logistics, IMRG, commented: “We know that major UK online retailers are anticipating strong growth over Q4, perhaps as much as 20% year-on-year for the quarter. This will include upturns of circa 30% or more over the super-peak days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The growth rate in order volumes this month is approaching this 20% figure and suggests we could be heading for a big final quarter, perhaps fuelled by the mild September and October we have had which may have suppressed sales of winter fashion lines and could increase the volumes of discounted stock available over the Black Friday / Cyber Monday period.”
He stressed that even though a lot of work has been done by the logistics industry to prepare for the Christmas peak, variables such as the weather can impact the size and scale of peak. “So this is one area for industry to monitor closely.”
Kees de Vos, chief product and marketing officer, MetaPack, added: “It is great to see that we are now exceeding the growth forecast. Our observation is that retailers, carriers and delivery services have already put frameworks in place for the peak period, which will enable them to manage what could be a four-fold increase in orders. As such we are better positioned to maximise the massive opportunity that it affords us all and really boost delivery volumes in the final quarter of the year. ”
The IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index was designed to enable the e-retail industry to track a wide range of key benchmark metrics to enable organisations to benchmark performance, track trends and inform strategic decisions. The index covers more than 200 retailers and an average of more than 5 million orders per month.
