Consumer behavior

Over half of online shoppers are prepared to wait longer for a parcel if it is from a sustainable shop. Still, only 1 in 5 customers are prepared to pay extra for eco-friendly delivery. Consumers are most worried about the environment when shopping for groceries and fashion.

Even though the population in the Netherlands continues aging, retailers are hardly profiting from it. On the contrary, it will cost Dutch sellers 2 percent in revenue by 2032. Therefore merchants should focus more on the elderly, researchers say.

Online furniture and home goods retailer Wayfair is laying off 870 employees. This reduction affects 5 percent of its global workforce and 10 percent of its corporate team. According to the company, its team is too big for the current economic environment.

Just months after expanding to Germany and Ireland, Canadian ecommerce investor Clearco is cutting 25 percent of its staff. This comes down to 125 employees. The company points to ‘the current macroeconomic environment’.

Shopify is laying off 10 percent of its staff. This comes down to a thousand employees. According to the company, it is due to a decline in customer demand after peak growth during the pandemic.

Dutch shoppers expect to buy more online in the next few years, in particular health, beauty and food products. For the first time, over half of consumers say they will buy more on their smartphone in 5 years.

Over 40 percent of online stores close customer care after 5 pm, according to surveys in Germany and the Netherlands. Almost half of German shops are not reachable at night. However, the evenings are a peak time for online shoppers.

The large amount of returns in ecommerce is a cause of worries for many online sellers. However, 71 percent of consumers say that online sellers don't offer any sizing tools, which could reduce returns.

Finnish consumers rate ecommerce the least eco-friendly industry compared to the rest of Northern Europe, while Danish customers are the most critical about sustainability. Moreover, Finn.no, Matsmart, Aarstiderne, Tori.fi and Bol.com are voted most sustainable online retailers.

Customer support was busier in 2021: ticket volumes increased for all channels compared to the year before. Consumers also have higher expectations of customer service.

Because of the pandemic, more and more consumers find their way to online stores. It's encouraged consumers to buy from retailers they'd never ordered from before, which has made cross-border shopping grow exponentially. Can retailers take advantage from this during the holidays?

Live shopping in Europe is becoming more and more popular. This trend started in China and the rest of Southeast Asia, but now consumers in Europe are increasingly watching live shopping events to get inspired to buy some clothes and other fashion items.

While 45 percent of British consumers say that next-day delivery would make them more likely to shop with a merchant, 66 percent of retailers offer this kind of service. Also, some retailers fail to meet consumers' needs regarding free delivery.

A majority of consumers in Europe want to be inspired when browsing ecommerce websites online. But according to many shoppers, many online stores aren't that inspirational. And that lack of inspiration is a barrier against using them.

Three in four European consumers (74 percent) say they will stick to their pandemic online shopping levels, meaning they won't reduce their ecommerce activities now they can shop offline again. So it looks like the shift to ecommerce is here to stay.