Every day, millions of packages are shipped worldwide. Order fulfillment may seem mundane, but the truth is, it’s become a fundamental aspect to human life since the rise of eCommerce. We decided to take a look at how order fulfillment looks by the numbers.
Overview
1. 87 billion packages were shipped in the year 2018.
(source: Statista)
2. USPS adds 4071 addresses to its delivery network every single day.
(source: USPS)
3. Cardboard waste from the US eCommerce industry results in the loss of one billion trees each year.
(source: Fast Company)
Customer Expectations
4. Customers look up their order tracking page an average of 3.5 times per order.
(source: Tracktor)
5. 68% of people prefer to have their packages shipped to their house.
(source: Statista)
6. 38% of online shoppers abandon an order because a package may take longer than a week to arrive.
(source: eConsultancy)
7. 40% of shoppers consider the post-purchase experience to be the most memorable part of the brand experience with 73.6% of shoppers saying that delivery is the most important to the overall shopping experience. A further 75% of shoppers state that clear communication is key to a good delivery experience.
(source: Convey)
8. 51% of shoppers want real-time visibility into the status of their orders.
(source: Retail TouchPoints)
9. 63% of consumers expect a standard delivery to arrive within three days of ordering.
(source: Retail TouchPoints)
10. 94% of consumers blame retailers for a poor delivery.
(source: Dropoff)
11. 80% of consumers want same-day shipping.
(source: Invesp)
12. 94% of shoppers have taken an action to qualify for free shipping. However, free shipping’s importance has been on the decline over the past 5 years.
(source: UPS)
Merchant Challenges
13. 64.4% of merchants have a single distribution center.
(source: Saddle Creek Logistics)
14. Merchants face a variety of difficulties with fulfillment, the first of which is the processing time for outbound orders and secondly is system integration.
(source: Saddle Creek Logistics)
15. 39.4% of merchants outsource at least some of their fulfillment operations.
(source: Saddle Creek Logistics)
16. 24.7% of merchants say that delivery costs are the biggest challenge their supply chain faces.
(source: Eye for Transport 2018 Supply Chain Study)
17. Transportation management systems can improve freight savings by as much as 8%.
(source: Forbes)
18. Since 2012, net asking rents on distribution centers have risen 5.6% each year.
(source: JOC.com)
19. Up to 12% of merchants are unprofitable due simply to distribution costs.
(source: Logistics Bureau)
20. Human error is the number one cause of fulfillment issues.
(source: Stitch Labs)
21. Almost 50% of warehouses track order cycle times (the time between receiving and shipping an order) manually. 19% don’t track them at all.
(source: Logistics Management)
22. The top 20% of merchants have a rate of 99.8% for on-time shipments. The bottom 20% of merchants only hit 94% or lower.
(source: Warehousing Education and Research Council)
