Home delivery performance has slightly improved in 2022/23, but 67% of consumers still face delivery problems that are negatively impacting ecommerce brands.

That’s according to Descartes’ second annual consumer sentiment study of ecommerce home delivery, which studied 8,000 consumers across ten European and North American countries.

“This past year’s growth slowdown in ecommerce and home delivery has resulted in a 6% improvement in delivery performance versus the 2022 study; however, 67% of the consumers surveyed still experienced a delivery failure in the three-month evaluation period,” said Chris Jones, EVP, Industry at Descartes. “What’s more, 68% of those affected by delivery problems took some form of action that translated into negative consequences for the retailer or delivery company (see Figure 1), indicating that the pandemic grace period is over and consumers are becoming intolerant of poor delivery performance.”

Additional key findings include:

• Top three delivery problems are all related to timeliness;
• Security is the most important element of the home delivery process; and
• Preference for low-cost delivery is twice as important as delivery speed.

The annual study analyses consumer ecommerce buying behavior. It investigates the causes of increases or decreases in ecommerce purchases, the kinds of goods purchased, the frequency of purchases, and which purchases are being delivered.

In addition, it provides insight into customer delivery personas, services, charges and performance. Most importantly, it analyses the overall importance that consumers place on delivery performance and the impact of delivery failures on future purchases while also providing demographic-based analysis of results.