Online shoppers in Switzerland have the highest return rate in Europe. The proportion of returned parcels in Swiss online retail has more than tripled within five years, according to a study by the parcel service provider Geopost / DPD Group, which is carried out regularly in over 20 European countries.
Online shoppers in Switzerland sent 28 percent of their parcels back to the sender last year, which is almost a third of all parcels. According to the study, in 2017 it was still eight percent. Thus, the return rate continues to rise, although more and more retailers have introduced a fee. On average, consumers in the other European countries returned only 14 percent of the packages. Portugal has the lowest rate at six percent. All regular e-shoppers who order products online at least once a month are recorded in the statistics. They account for 90 percent of the volume in online trading.
The renewed increase in the return rate in 2022 indicates that this is not a temporary development as a result of mobility restrictions during the pandemic, according to the study. This also applies to online trade as a whole: four out of five online shoppers in Switzerland now shop online, more than half of them regularly. These numbers increased during the pandemic and have remained constant ever since.
Online orders for fresh food and drinks have increased dramatically during the pandemic – here too there was no significant downward trend after the lifting of the Covid measures. In 2017 only 14 percent of e-shoppers ordered fresh groceries, in 2021 it was already 30 percent and in 2022 it was still 29 percent.