Courier and express delivery market to top £10 billion

Category: DeliveryNews

According to research published by Mintel, in their courier and express delivery report UK 2017, the value of courier and express delivery managed an impressive £1 billion increase in sales in 2016, upping the overall spend to an estimated £10 billion this year.

Overall, 2.8 billion packages and parcels were delivered in 2016, with the number growing by 65% in four years, up from 1.7 billion in 2012. In 2017 sales are expected to reach £10.8 billion rising to £13.2 billion by 2021, the equivalent of 4 billion packages. Alongside this, UK online retail sales are expected to grow by 55.3% over this same five year period to reach £81.94 billion.

Incredibly, almost nine in 10 (87%) Brits have sent or received a parcel in the last 6 months.

Marco Amasanti, Business-to-Business Analyst at Mintel said “The crux of the recent surge in courier and express delivery services surrounds the ongoing digitalisation of all consumer behaviour, in which e-commerce is the apex. As online channels continue to increase their grip across retailing, the industry is only expected to grow further as supply strives to match surging demand. Money previously spent in retail stores is now increasingly spent online, boosting business-to-consumer delivery demand not only through the initial purchase, but also through the return of goods bought online. The business-to-consumer sector, underlined by the rise in e-commerce will be key to future growth.”

“Convenience, in particular the importance of saving time, has become key to consumer demand. It is clear that demand for convenient time windows is significantly more prevalent among younger Brits. Convenience has gradually pervaded these generations, and established itself as a norm and benchmark in the market. Operators that target a younger market must acknowledge these growing expectations, and shift focus onto customer service accordingly.” Marco continues.

The culture of wanting your package the same day or even within hours of being ordered means that the value of next day deliveries reached £5.5 billion in 2016, up from £3.1 billion in 2012. Same day deliveries have risen from £488 million in 2012 to £1 billion in 2016.

The research also flags reasons why consumers may be dissatisfied with the courier service they received. Top of the list is a long wait time, followed by a parcel being left in an unsafe place (13%) and the parcel not being delivered within the agreed delivery slot (11%). One in 10 (10%) users has experienced a parcel being lost in the post, (8%) have suffered damage to the contents of the parcel.

Home delivery and the convenience of ordering from your home to be delivered anywhere in the world as quickly as possible is evidently becoming the consumers way of buying and distributing their goods, and this is only going to become even bigger. High street stores have a mammoth task to try and entice customers back to their shops, and expectations as to the capabilities of parcel delivery in terms of timescale have become almost expected.

Chinese retailer JD.com plan to launch a fleet of heavy lifting drones that can carry items weighing the equivalent of a small car across cities to its 235 million customers.

It began trials back in November 2016 and will primarily be used to carry goods to customers living in remote regions. JD.com is the Amazon of China, and with so many delivery networks it sees drones as the next big step. With 235 million regular customers, they need to adapt.

The move has frustrated Amazon, with boss Jeff Bezos frustrated that the Federal Aviation Administration can’t decide how to regulate the airways and taking 10 months to clear the first flights of its experimental drone. By that time, the applications approval was useless because the company had already built bigger and better drones. As a result, Amazon has now shifted its drone development facilities to Canada and the UK, and progress has been somewhat slower than its Chinese rivals.

However, instead of the drone delivering directly to customers’ doorsteps, a local delivery person retrieves the cargo from the drone, which may carry between eight and 15 packages that were ordered by people in the village. The delivery person then brings the packages to people’s doors. Amazon, on the other hand, has shown how it plans to use drones to deliver directly to people’s houses, as opposed to grouping local shipments like JD.

With technology expanding at a large rate, drones may be a new interesting concept, but at the moment they are just that. So called ‘old fashioned’ shipping methods will continue on as they always have, and companies will look for innovative and price effective ways of making sure that their customers still use people rather than just technology.

We have recently taken delivery of a new 7.5 tonne lorry. This allows us to make dedicated deliveries just for you, and is a good option for more bulky items that would not be able to go through a network.

There are many benefits to this way of transporting your package. The first is that there is always only one driver controlling the job – creating a more personal service and ensuring that every aspect of the delivery is known by the driver. No passing on to third parties and other drivers, its all through us so we know exactly where it is all the time.
The other benefits include your cargo not being mixed with any other freight, no risk of it getting lost or sent to the wrong place! It can be a completely time specific delivery – we liaise directly with you and you are in control. There is also much less risk of damage this way, as our only priority is you.

There is a large load space, and weight of up to 2400 kilos is available.

If you think that this could be of interest, please contact us at your earliest convenience and see if our new method of transport works for you!