A survey of e-commerce customers in 17 countries around the world has shown that 84% of them were satisfied with their cross border delivery experience. 4075 respondents were surveyed.
Herbert-Michael Zapf, President and CEO of International Post Corporation (IPC) commented on the first Online Shopper Survey: “This survey.. provides us with valuable insights to help postal operators understand and meet the evolving needs for cross-border e-Commerce, and will therefore be repeated annually. Cross-border is continuously growing and for this to continue it is important for postal operators to understand consumers’ behaviour in order to meet their need for more convenience and remove remaining obstacles for consumers to embrace cross -border e-Commerce.”
China is the largest export market for global cross-border online shopping and that free shipping is being offered to 59% of cross-border online shoppers, according to the survey.
China sees more cross border shopping than any other country. 99% of Chinese e-commerce shoppers buy from abroad at least once a month where 63% is closer to the average for the rest of the world. China also differs to the rest of the world in the means of e-commerce. Where 53% of Chinese shoppers use a mobile device, 77% of the rest of the world use a computer.
China is one of the biggest sources for cross border shopping – 80% of shoppers buy from China. Next on the list is the UK (29%), Germany (14%) the US (13% and France (5%). Those buying from China overwhelmingly use the Alibaba marketplace, with 69% of orders placed on AliExpress or eBay, which uses the Alibaba platform in China.
Clothing, footwear and fashion items were the largest category for cross border e-commerce (25% followed by consumer electronics (14%).
The most important areas for improvement for carriers are reliability, tracking and transparency on customs duties and taxes that they will have to pay when the parcel is delivered.
The full report is accessible for IPC members at:
https://www.ipc.be/en/programmes/e-commerce/online-shopper-survey
