Retail and e-commerce – October 2023

31 October 2023

Developments in retail
Ecommerce Europe has published the 2023 European E-commerce Report (2.33 MB). The B2C e-commerce turnover increased from €849 billion in 2021 to €899 billion in 2022, despite a shifting economic and political environment. Although the 6% growth rate for 2022 is lower than in 2021 (12%), the sector continues to move forward and is expected to continue growing in 2023.
According to Thuiswinkel.org (in Dutch), online spending by Dutch consumers in the first half of 2023 reached €16.3 billion, 2% more than the same period last year. The number of online purchases remains stable at 167.8 million. You can download the basic version of the report (in Dutch) after filling in your details.
According to a recent report by Fortune Business Insights, the global e-commerce packaging market size is projected to show robust growth by attaining a valuation of $86.93 billion by 2030. You can find more information in the report summary.

Reusable packaging
On 12 October 2023, Emmilie Kuks held a presentation entitled ‘Enhancing reuse ecosystem development for primary FMCG packaging: developing a support tool for the supermarket branch‘ as part of her master assignment at the University of Twente. Chairman of the assessment committee was prof. Roland ten Klooster who holds the NVC Chair Packaging Design and Management.
The Reusable Packaging Association has published a report entitled ‘Retail and the 'How' of Reusable Transport Packaging’. The report shares critical elements to help retailers and their suppliers further understand and accelerate the use of reusable transport packaging assets. You can download the report after filling in your details.
WRAP has published a report (731 kB) which summarises the insights and recommendations gathered in its roundtable dialogues with the aim of driving increased uptake of reusable packaging across a selection of high impact product categories.
A factsheet (550 kB) published by the Food Packaging Forum outlines critical factors to consider when switching to reuse.
The University of Hamburg has published a study (2 MB) in the Information Systems Journal, entitled; ‘Growing online-to-offline platform businesses: How Vytal became the world-leading provider of smart reusable food packaging’.

E-commerce packaging
DHL has published the Global Online Shopper Survey (38.91 MB) for 2023 and a report (55.39 MB) focussing on Europe. To gain profound insights into their e-commerce purchasing patterns, shoppers were surveyed from ten countries across Europe and, for the first time from 13 countries across the globe.
ShoppingTomorrow (in Dutch) has published 21 papers on various topics around online and offline shopping behaviour within the b2b and b2c markets in the Netherlands. You can download the papers (in Dutch) after filling in your details. ShoppingTomorrow has also published a magazine (in Dutch, 15,8 MB) with interviews, visions, case stories and future scenarios as additional information to the various papers.
The annual unboxing survey by MacFarlane highlights the tricky balancing act of managing cost and sustainability. 55% of the consumers say retailers should keep sustainable packaging a top priority. A further 42% also believe it should be a priority – but not at the expense of keeping costs down.
 

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