The mood in online retail was worse last year than in previous years. According to the current annual study 2023 by the dealer association, the overall satisfaction of online retailers has fallen by 23 percent compared to the Corona year 2021. Three quarters of companies see inflation and purchasing reluctance as the biggest challenges for the new year 2024.
Since 2021, for the first time, over half of retailers have reported negative sales developments in e-commerce. The value will continue to fall in 2023. Overall, 54 percent of those surveyed reported falling numbers. Last year it was 51 percent of those surveyed. The proportion of very dissatisfied retailers fell from 20 percent in the previous year to currently 15 percent.
However, at 30 percent, almost every third retail company surveyed is concerned about the course of the current year 2024. Delivery bottlenecks (29 percent) and a lack of personnel (18 percent) are also considered the biggest challenges. Far fewer companies struggle with classic business challenges such as payment (5 percent), service (4 percent), digitization of processes (10 percent) or legal security (24 percent).
Christmas business caused a slight improvement. Ten percent of those surveyed said they were “very satisfied” with the result, while 45 percent rated it “positive”. This value is better than last year, but still lower over the last ten years.
On the other hand, positive things have happened with returns, with the overall return rate in 2023 being lower. Only four percent of those surveyed received “very many” returns, compared to eleven percent in the previous year. This means that over ten percent of the packages sent were returned.
With this annual study, the dealer association has examined the mood in online retail for the tenth time. A total of 305 online retailers were surveyed.