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Published
Mar 28, 2018
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Bad weather hits deliveries in February

Published
Mar 28, 2018

February was a tough month for online retailers in the UK, who not only saw a decline in order volumes compared to January, but also struggled to deliver orders on time after heavy snowfall led to the closure of several roads across the country.


Photo: Archive


This is according to the latest data from the IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index, which measures the evolution of the British e-retail industry every month. The index reveals that online retail delivery order volumes were up 7% compared to the same month last year, but fell by 21% when compared to January 2018.

The month-on-month decline was expected, as January is an important shopping month for consumers who take advantage of the post-holiday sales, but it was sharper than forecasted. The decline was further heightened by the strong performance last month, when order volumes were at their highest since 2013, said IMRG.

“The huge surge in online retail orders placed in January, when online appeared to benefit from footfall to high streets hitting a five-year January low, appears to have flowed through to lower February volumes,” commented Andrew Starkey, head of e-logistics at IMRG.

"The retail landscape was looking pretty bleak towards the end of 2017 due to the continuing squeeze on shopper spend, but inflation eased in February so people may start to feel a bit more confident in terms of how they use their discretionary spend. The extreme weather conditions experienced in February have clouded start of year performance trends so it is difficult to predict the outlook for online retail overall at the moment.”

The index also revealed that that cross-border volumes and order values remain strong, especially for EU destinations. Maria Dahlqvist Canton, global marketing director at MetaPack, said: “This reflects the volume increases that we saw throughout last year, and we fully expect it to continue unless there is a change in exchange rates, in which case experience tells us that cross-border orders will fluctuate.”

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