DHL E-tailers’ Almanac: four key trends influencing e-tailers in 2023

DHL eCommerce Solutions, a division of the world’s leading logistics company, Deutsche Post DHL Group, has launched the 2023 E-tailers’ Almanac. The E-tailers’ Almanac aims to help online merchants plan their shipments and identify overarching trends. The four overarching trends are based on DHL eCommerce Solutions’ U.S. customer feedback and lightweight parcel industry developments in the last year.

The four market trends are as follows:

Cost-consciousness is here to stay: With global and U.S. macroeconomic uncertainties looming in 2023, consumers are expected to be more cost-conscious in their online spending. Budgetary pressures are forcing consumers to make trade-offs and reallocate their budgets across purchase categories. [1] This shift in online consumer spending is impacting online merchants’ shipping requirements and making the cost of shipping their number one priority, pushing the speed of delivery to a close second place.

Pandemic volume boom gone, closer to 2019 levels: With less consumer spending across product categories, DHL eCommerce Solutions U.S. has seen volumes normalize but reach approximately 20% higher volume compared to 2019, a slight decrease from pandemic (2020-2021) volume levels. This overall normalization of volume across the logistics industry is due to online retailers facing margin pressures, a dip in demand, and cost and labor increases, resulting in many negotiating with multiple shipping carriers for the most economical and reliable service.

Reliability and real-time visibility: Based on online merchant feedback provided to DHL eCommerce Solutions, reliability, proactive real-time visibility, and tracking top their list of needs in addition to the price. Regarding shipment tracking and exceptions, online merchants request proactive, timely updates via email or API real-time updates and feeds. As a result, we can expect increased investments among logistics providers in data analytics and instant tracking and transportation disruption notification capabilities.

Regionalization of demand returns: As supply chain bottlenecks ease and market conditions stabilize, we expect to see a return to long-term shipping trends such as regionalization of demand. For e-commerce merchants, regionalizing their distribution networks can help them get closer to their end consumers and save on transportation costs, but this will demand a strong logistics partner with an extensive footprint.