Future trends for parcel sending and eCommerce
While 2020 was a year full of disruption and change for businesses and consumers alike, some of the trends that emerged will be here to stay in 2021 and beyond. At Pitney Bowes, we’ve identified three trends businesses should keep in mind.1. The eCommerce boom has only just begun.
The upward trend in eCommerce will continue as consumers increasingly shop online, forcing retailers to adapt their operations and move towards etailing environments. More than 900,000 Australian households shopped online for the first time between March and August of 2020, according to Australia Post.
The Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index, which tracks the growth of parcel sending found that global parcel volume surpassed 100 billion parcels in 2019, reaching 103 billion parcels total. In Australia, on average more than 2.5 million parcels were sent each day; that’s more than 106 thousand parcels per hour, 1,777 per minute, or 30 per second.
Managing shipping can be time-consuming and tedious. Look for a solution that enables you to compare shipping costs across carriers and delivery times. Solutions that include order management features, greater flexibility, and more visibility can help with cost management and optimising the customer experience.
2. Growing investment in technologies that empower remote working
Companies increasingly offered more flexibility, options to work remotely, and more frequent communication to help keep employees engaged and collaborating throughout the COVID-19 pandemic response, according to KPMG. For many organisations, this meant assessing business-critical processes and identifying how to empower employees to work productively regardless of location. Companies that rely on sending and receiving packages to conduct business needed to implement safe and secure methods of parcel shipping to keep both their employees and their company information and assets safe.
The future working environment is likely to involve a hybrid of office-based and remote working, and employees will continue to engage in more flexible working practices. Solutions that simplify sending mail from home and the office will continue to increase in popularity, as organisations invest more in ways to empower their staff to work at the same level of productivity wherever they are.
3. Increased use of analytics for deeper, more valuable insights
Organisations have faced the challenge of a lack of visibility into employee behaviour since the transition to remote working in 2020. Flexible and remote working solutions give employees greater control and autonomy over how they manage workloads and activities. At the same time, it can be difficult to know whether documents and parcels have been shipped out as needed. This can lead to errors like double handling, missing items, and unhappy customers.
Cloud-based parcel shipping solutions can help keep track of packages and documents sent, and provide visibility into volumes, delivery information, shipping spend, and more. Tools that facilitate access to analytics and reporting based on metrics such as shipping spend and activity will help businesses with forecasting and cost savings.
Organisations that invest in solutions that provide greater insights into tracking and delivery will also be able to alleviate concerns over lost and delayed parcels. By leveraging technologies that use simple dashboards to display information, managers will be able to see crucial data at a glance to drive better, more informed business decisions.
Pitney Bowes recently introduced its online shipping platform, SendPro™ Online to the Australian market. This easy-to-use solution lets you ship packages from anywhere at discount prices. To find out more, have a look at our website. We offer a Pay-as-you-Go (PAYG) plan, which is free to use; all you pay for is shipping costs for your parcels. Try SendPro Online PAYG, sign up here.
If you’re interested in a demo of SendPro Online by one of our support team, please call us on 13 23 63.