Online shoppers in Europe seek low cost and convenience in delivery

Hamburg, Germany, May 21, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Online shoppers in Europe also value free shipping. Free delivery for future purchases was expected almost two thirds of online shoppers in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In those Central European nations the online retailers focused their efforts on timely delivery. Same day delivery is becoming the standard for online merchants in Germany, even though consumers would prefer free delivery within two or three days. High delivery cost was among the main reason for abandoning an online shopping cart in Germany.

In Western Europe, online shoppers in the UK are looking for wider delivery options, with free delivery as one of the key factors in making a purchase decision. In France, the national postal operator La Poste was the leading player on the B2C E-Commerce delivery market in 2013. A third of online shoppers in France chose an online retailer based on the speed of delivery. The share of online shoppers in the Netherlands indicating speed of delivery as important grew in 2013. In Spain, length of delivery time was the reason for close to 20% shoppers to abandon their online shopping cart.

The B2C E-Commerce delivery systems in Eastern Europe respond to a variety of challenges. The delivery market in Russia is growing rapidly, with most of the increase going to couriers rather the postal system. As for delivery times, half of Russian online shoppers were willing to wait for their online purchases to be delivered within one week, however, in reality, over a third of online shoppers had to wait for one to several weeks for delivery, and over 10% for several months.

In Poland, the majority of online shoppers waited just a couple of days for delivery of online purchases, and majority of Polish shoppers perceived delivery costs to be too high.

The presence of a home delivery option was a popular reason for shoppers in Turkey to buy online and not in store in 2012. Moreover, the majority of online shoppers in Turkey chose a particular store because of rapid and reliable home delivery. On the other hand, In Ukraine, the vast majority of online shoppers prefer to pick up their online purchases themselves from the courier's office, the post office or from the store.

In the Scandinavian nations, home delivery was the most preferred option and online shoppers were willing to accept a delivery time of several days to lower the cost of the purchase.