87% of Brits have sent or received a parcel in 2017

Almost nine in ten Brits have sent or received a parcel in the last six months. That’s no surprise, as the courier and express delivery market showed a €1.1 billion increase in sales last year. The Brits now spend as much as 11.4 billion euros on these services.

This amount of sales is an increase of 63 percent compared to the situation in 2012, when the courier and express delivery market in the UK was worth about 7 billion euros. Market research firm Mintel published its Courier and Express Delivery UK 2017 report and this shows that sales in this industry are expected to reach 12.2 billion euros in 2017. The market is forecast to grow by 22 percent to reach almost 15 billion euros in 2012

Market volumes are expected to grow 33 percent to reach 4 billion packages in the same time period. Last year, 2.8 billion packages and parcels were delivered, which is an increase of 65 percent compared to the 1.7 billion packages and parcels that were delivered in 2012.

‘B2C will be key to future growth’

“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”, says Mintel’s analyst Marco Amasanti. “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 ecommerce will be key to future growth.”

According to the report, the growth in this industry has also been driven thanks to consumers wanting their parcels and packages as soon as they have been ordered. This is shown by the fact that the value of next day deliveries increased from 3.5 billion euros in 2012 to 6.2 billion euros last year. Same day deliveries grew from 552 million euros in 2012 to 1.1 billion euros last year.

Top 5 complaints about delivery

The most important issues consumers have with delivery are waiting a long time for a parcel to be delivered (15 percent), a parcel being left in an unsafe place (13 percent) and the parcel not being delivered in the agreed delivery slot (11 percent). Also, 10 percent of the users have experience a parcel being lost in the post, while 8 percent have suffered damage to the contents of their parcel. But still, 59 percent of users of couriers haven’t experienced any issues with parcels and delivery services in the last six months.

Note: On Ecommerce News, we write our articles in euros. The source of the article above used pound sterling. We converted all £ prices in € prices, using the current exchange rate (1 British pound = 1.13 Euros).