E-commerce and logistics to grow globally

Over the next decade, online retailing will gain even more importance than expected now – not just in developed countries but in emerging markets. This is according to the study « Global E-Tailing 2025 » commissioned by Deutsche Post DHL.
Logistics will also play a key role: it will provide businesses with significant competitive advantages, such as deliveries within a few hours on the same day of the order, flexible delivery and return times as well as resilient logistics and value added concepts in emerging countries.
The study was conducted by Deutsche Post DHL with the participation of trend research institutions Z_punkt and See More and numerous international experts from retail, logistics and academia. It is the first comprehensive study of scenarios on cross-border online commerce and its implications for the logistics industry, the release said.
Through four scenarios, the study shows how the electronic world of shopping around the globe might look to consumers and businesses in the near future. The different projections are based on a detailed analysis of the most influential factors – ranging from the price of energy and raw materials to technological, political and social factors to retail and consumption patterns. The scenarios also describe the possible effects of changes to society’s values system in 2025. The research focused on developed and emerging markets worldwide. Trend scouts also studied the trends of purchases and logistics in 12 international cities – among them, New York, Moscow, Bangalore, Jakarta and Lagos.
Today, e-commerce already makes up eight percent of the volume of global trade in Europe. Depending on the scenario, this share could rise to 40 percent in developed countries and up to 30 percent in emerging markets today.
You can read a summary of the four scenarios developed as well as the full study here.