Online shopping to drive deliveries in UK to over 1.35 billion by 2018

The research, commissioned by Barclays’ Retail and Transport & Logistics banking sector and conducted by Conlumino, shows that in 2013 online orders resulted in just over 1 billion deliveries. By 2018 that figure is forecast to have risen 29% to over 1.35 billion.

The growth in deliveries will be driven by clothing and footwear which, over the next four years, will account for 20% of deliveries. Furthermore, by 2018, the food and grocery market will increase in importance, overtaking books in numbers of deliveries by 2018. The highest growth sector will be electrical with the number of packages for this sector growing 61% over the next four years.

According to Richard Lowe, head of Retail & Wholesale at Barclays, the delivery market is having to evolve as consumers look for faster and more innovative delivery options, such as Sunday delivery and Click & Collect.

“Although they seek more flexibility in delivery options, consumers are still very conscious of keeping prices low with cost influencing consumers preference more than any other factor including quality of service,” said Lowe.

Other key findings from Barclay’s 2014 ‘Last Mile Report’ include:

– Letterbox-sized packages made up 60% of all deliveries from online orders in 2013;

– Letterbox-sized packages are set to see the highest growth by 2018 (45%);

– 30% of retailers would use Click & Collect as a preferred delivery option but less than 20% of consumers have used this delivery service in the past year;

– South East England is the region with the highest number of deliveries and is set to remain so, while East Anglia is forecast to be the region with the highest growth in deliveries.