Summer deals send online retail orders going to EU soaring

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Aug 22, 2017

The share of online retail orders going to EU destinations increased to 62.7% of all cross-border delivery volumes in July, fuelled by the drop in the value of the sterling and summer discounts. This is the highest share in four years.

A year earlier, the share of orders going to the EU was 55.3%, according to the latest IMRG MetaPack UK Delivery Index.

The data shows that while online retail delivery order volumes grew by 16.5% year-on-year in July, sales revenue growth from online retail increased by just 11%, suggesting that discounting during the summer sales period accounted for a significant portion of those sales.

Additionally, the sudden drop in sterling following the Brexit vote last year has driven a notable increase in the percentage of orders going to international destinations. In July 2017, 29.6% of all Delivery Index volumes went to both EU and non-EU destinations, up from 26.6% in July last year and 24.4% in July 2015.

“We can see a consistent rise in cross border orders which over the last three months have all been over 60% of the total. Whilst we could assume that this is to do with Sterling and the beneficial prices that overseas consumers are enjoying, we believe it is also part of a wider trend. As long as UK retailers can offer quality products with great delivery options at good prices, overseas customers are happy to make their purchases, and we have every reason to believe this will continue even once the UK is out of the EU,” says Chris Hoskin, Head of Marketing, MetaPack.

On a month-on-month basis, the Delivery index recorded a dip of 2.6%, which could be related to July’s relatively colder temperatures following and exceptionally warm June and Amazon Prime Day not being included in the data.