Booming eCommerce changed peak season shipping patterns in 2020

Unsurprisingly, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased eCommerce sales around the world. Earlier last year, analysts predicted the growing role of online shopping and eCommerce, expecting a surge of over 60% in November and December 2020, compared to 2019. So how have shipping patterns changed in response?

Even with lockdown measures, eCommerce sales have remained at record-breaking levels throughout 2020. In fact, the first signs that holiday shopping and the Christmas season would bring such unprecedented volumes came as early as March 2020. According to Kantar, over 80% of customers from countries such as the UK, France, and Germany, stated that they had continued to shop online throughout 2020, while 88% said that they had bought gifts online over the holiday period.

As the year progressed and volumes continued to increase, some logistics providers had to make the difficult decision of not accepting any shipping customers as early as August, which is a decision typically made in October during “normal” times. Securing capacity for the forthcoming peak season remained at the top of the shippers’ priorities, especially given how constrained transport supply to the eCommerce market had become.

Many retailers have moved promotions early and encouraged customers to order in advance as well by offering early holiday deals such as Black Friday discounts. Nevertheless, according to PRNewswire's survey, it seems that out of the 62% of consumers that shopped in-store last year for the holidays, only 28% planned on doing so during the pandemic.

Meanwhile, in Asia, Alibaba and its express shipping company AliExpress saw a 350% rise in the value of merchandise sold internationally on Singles Day, which is a Chinese event founded by the e-commerce firm and developed into the Global Shopping Festival. The first four hours of transactions exceeded the total from 2019, with sellers outside China seeing three times more orders than last year. 

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