New data indicates that growth in both the UK and US e-commerce sectors is widespread despite an increasingly complex operating environment.
The Linnworks annual State of Commerce Ops Report is focused on the mid-market ecommerce sector (retailers with annual revenue between $7.5m to $100m).
Analysing survey results from 500 mid-market retail leaders, split evenly between the US and UK, the survey questions were designed to capture both current-state performance and forward-looking priorities, focusing on five key topics:
- Revenue and order volume growth
- Operational efficiency and scalability
- Automation and AI adoption
- Logistics, fulfillment, and systems complexity
- Strategic priorities for the year ahead
Key findings include:-
- Growth is widespread, but scalability is selective: 89.6% (U.K.) and 88.8% (U.S.) of retailers report moderate to significant year-over-year growth. Growth is no longer constrained by ambition or demand. Instead, it is constrained by operational design and high growth is correlated with automation and multichannel maturity
- Inventory visibility is the quiet scalability bottleneck: Only around one-third of retailers in both the U.K. and U.S. report excellent inventory visibility across channels and warehouses. Inventory accuracy, fulfillment execution and system reliability remain the most common points of failure as businesses grow across channels and markets
- AI adoption is shifting from “nice-to-have” to essential: 60.8% (U.S.) and 54.8% (U.K.) use AI chatbots for customer support. AI is also expanding into operationally critical areas, including:
- Demand forecasting
- Inventory and order management
- Marketing optimisation
- Fraud prevention
- Automation is a baseline, not a differentiator: 64.8% (U.K.) and 60.0% (U.S.) report operations that are majority or highly automated. Adoption depth varies significantly – and those differences are increasingly reflected in growth outcomes, operational resilience and leadership confidence.
- Fulfillment and logistics is a make-or-break for customer experience:Carrier diversification is a clear sign of operational maturity. Retailers using multiple carriers are more resilient during peak periods, face fewer disruptions, and have more flexibility to balance cost and delivery speed.
The full report is available to download here.
