E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing industries today. After online sales nearly tripled between 2014 and 2019, the pandemic further increased e-commerce deliveries by 25% in 2020, lastingly changing the way people buy anything, from food and grocery to electronics, apparel, and home furnishing.
The surge in online consumer spending is pushing more and more retailers to leverage the web. The UAE is no exception, where the total value of the consumer goods e-commerce market increased by 37.5% last year, with almost 60% of the resident population making purchases or paying bills online. As a consequence, between 2019 and 2020, the number of high-volume e-commerce trading partners in the UAE jumped by 44%, while the number of online shops grew by 21%.
Beyond just growing, e-commerce is also evolving rapidly. In fact, together with the online shopping boom comes a steady shift in buying behaviors and an intensifying concern over its environmental impact.
Prior to the Covid-19 e-commerce boost, a January 2020 report of the World Economic Forum predicted a 30% rise in emissions from last-mile deliveries by 2030. This means that in order to sequester the additional 6 million tonnes of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere, we would need to plant 12 million extra trees to balance those emissions.
That’s why more and more environmentally conscious customers are looking for sustainable delivery options. Recent studies report that 32% of consumers value sustainable delivery over other practical factors they once favored, and 47% of them are willing to wait longer for a greener delivery, where express deliveries are believed to create more environmental pressure than regular 5-day deliveries.
What’s possibly even more telling about the future trend of the e-commerce industry is that 56% of millennials cite environmental protection as the reason for choosing alternatives to home delivery. Millennials – and even more so Generation Z, are greatly concerned with global challenges and take environmental issues seriously, expecting brands to be responsible for their environmental and social impact.
Having surpassed the baby boomers as the largest adult group, millennials are not only the first digitally native generation leading the pack in online purchases: they are also expected to exceed a collective annual income of 4 trillion dollars globally by 2030.
It is therefore not surprising that the decarbonization of last-mile deliveries has accelerated over the past year to meet this crucial customer group’s expectations. Brands are adopting a host of greener delivery options, including the introduction of electric vehicles (EVs) and bicycles while investing in new technologies like delivery robots and drones.
Yet, buyers expect to be offered environmentally conscious alternatives now. The most straightforward way to meet these expectations is to provide green delivery options right at the checkout, giving consumers the opportunity to be in control of their carbon footprint.
Opt-in carbon offsetting solutions for e-commerces emerge therefore as a meaningful differentiator in 2021 driving today’s last-mile revolution. Putting the customers in the driver’s seat and offering them the choice to go for complete green home delivery is a win-win for both the e-commerce and the buyer.
Olive Gaea helps e-commerces embed carbon offsetting options for the last-mile delivery on their website. Our API is easy to integrate, helping online shops and their customers effectively address climate change with a simple click. Meeting online shoppers’ sustainability needs is not only simple but also effective, thanks to Olive Gaea’s curated portfolio of offsetting solutions that are handpicked and verified by recognized third-party agencies.
To know more about Olive Gaea’s carbon offsetting API solutions for e-commerce, visit https://olivegaea.com/e-commerce.
Sources:
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_the_last_mile_ecosystem.pdf
https://www.metapack.com/the-sustainable-delivery-options-consumers-care-about/
https://khoros.com/blog/millennial-buying-habits
https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-united-arab-emirates
https://www.climateaction.org/news/what-is-the-environmental-cost-of-express-shipping-deliveries
