What is the state of the logistics service offered by online shops today, and how does that service level match the expectations of online shoppers? Roland Slegers of DeliveryMatch researched this in Europe's four largest e-commerce countries and combined the results with his own insights in a book: E-commerce logistics in Europe: integrate or stagnate?
For the study, conducted with Breda University of Applied Sciences, hundreds of online shops in the Netherlands, France, Germany and the UK were scrutinised. For each country, 1,000 consumers were questioned about their experiences with webshops' logistics services. Respondents could also indicate what they thought would be points of improvement in this area.
The conclusion Slegers draws in the book: customers' needs do not match companies' services. Customers are becoming more demanding, both in terms of logistics services and sustainability. According to the CEO of DeliveryMatch, logistics concepts and operations are lagging behind sales channels in their development. "Selling something at the front end is one thing, but organising the logistics chain behind it to get an order that often has to come from multiple locations and, if possible, at the right time and, if possible, also in one drop to the consumer, is an increasing challenge," says Slegers in an interview with OnlineRetailer.
In his book, Slegers describes what concepts and operations are needed to close these gaps and what type of software is useful in this respect. The book is already available via bol.com and Verloop Uitgeverij, both hardcopy and e-book.
