Tariffs and inflation
In the U.S., a majority (60%) of consumers said they expect to shift their purchasing habits in response to additional duties and tariffs. 44% said they’d reduce international purchases, and 10% would shift more purchases to local retailers.
Internationally, 46% of consumers said that inflation would drive them to reduce their online shopping purchases, with 9% shifting more purchases to local retailers.
Posts and parcel carriers might be anticipating a slowdown in 2025 holiday cross-border e-commerce, thanks to tariffs, but it looks like there may be a broader shift away from online shopping as well, which could impact volumes and capacity planning
Broad willingness for alternative delivery methods—if it’s cheaper or faster
Generally speaking, lots of consumers say they’re willing to use alternative delivery methods if it makes their deliveries faster or free, with the popularity of lockers being particularly noteworthy from the perspective of parcel carriers and postal operators.
If it made deliveries faster, 53% of consumers said they’d be willing to utilize in-store pickup, and 42% would use a locker to pick up a delivery. For free deliveries, 49% would pick up in-store and 38% would use a locker.
Locker pickup for faster deliveries was most popular in France (58%), Germany (53%) and the U.K. (49%), and the same three countries topped the ranks of locker preference for free deliveries.
Overall, for a faster delivery, just 12% said they wouldn’t consider any alternative to home delivery, and for a free delivery, that number falls to just 10%, showing that massive majorities of consumers are willing to change their holiday shopping delivery behavior if there’s an immediate benefit in cost or speed.
Out-of-home deliveries massively increase drop density and delivery reliability, transforming route efficiency. Incentivizing consumer adoption with price is perhaps easier for parcel carriers to achieve and to justify thanks to those improved unit economics, but this survey shows that speed is also a compelling incentive for changing consumer delivery behavior.
Speed expectations are high, but confidence is not
More than half of global shoppers (53%) expect delivery within 2-4 days of ordering. At the same time, only one-third (34%) are very confident that packages will arrive by the expected date.
This reflects the limitations of wide, one-size-fits-all delivery estimates, which tend to be presented to consumers regardless of available capacity, known delays, transportation partner availability and performance, and volume currently in the network.
Having a real-time, accurate view of your network allows you to start building in those real on-the-ground factors into your delivery estimates, meaning you can be both more precise and more accurate, giving customers delivery windows that aren’t 3-5 days wide, and giving them confidence in your ability to meet those delivery promises.
Find out how Blue Yonder can help postal and parcel carriers to navigate changing consumer expectations and win more business in e-commerce delivery.
