US package shipping industry Market Research Analysis

A. Total parcel market break down

1. Breakdown of who is shipping packages by segment (ex. what % is residential (regular people shipping items), e-commerce, returns,
b2b)
2. What size of packages are shipped most? (ex. Is it small packages under 5lbs?)
3. How many packages are shipped in Arizona every day?
Metrics Answer Reference
Throughout 15 million https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/12/07/arizona-
the year postal-service-operations-holiday/95060306/
[2016]
During the 17 million https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2016/12/07/arizona-
holidays postal-service-operations-holiday/95060306/
[2016]

4. Stats on how many packages/returns don't get shipped because of the hassle of packaging an item, getting postage, and shipping.
a. 35% of transactions were dropped because the website required the user to create an account before checkout.1
b. Most people like to feel safe, especially given the myriad of risks on the internet. In fact, 35% of individuals will abandon a site
if it does not appear to have a security badge.
c. 25% of shoppers abandon a cart because the item or the total cost is too much.
d. Abandonment by Sector
i. Finance is one of the most fluid market sectors, but it also suffers from an 83.6% cart abandonment rate
ii. Statistics show that travel carts are abandoned 81.7% of the time, which is the highest abandonment rate after finance
and non-profit sectors
iii. 72.8% of abandoned carts occur in retail
iv. While not as bad when compared to other market sectors, fashion e-commerce carts see a 68.3% abandonment rate
v. Gaming sees an abandonment rate of 64.2%
1
https://www.annexcloud.com/blog/31-shopping-cart-abandonment-statistics-for-2018/

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 e. 74% of North American shoppers abandon their carts: The U.S. and Canada have some of the lowest cart abandonment
numbers
f. By Device
i. Cell phones: Mobile shopping carts are the most likely to be abandoned, with an 85.65% ditch rate.
ii. Tablets: Tablet users have an abandonment rate of 80.74%, only slightly lower than those experienced on cell phones
iii. Desktops are most reliable: About 73% of desktop customers abandon their carts. While the number seems high, it is
still considerably lower when compared to mobile and table transaction averages.
g.

B. Individual Sellers (ebay, etsy, shopify, or any at-home businesses)

1. Survey Data from individuals and individual sellers about hassle of packaging & shipping.. What are their biggest challenges?
(Home based e-commerce businesses, ebay, etsy, etc)
2. breakdown of “home-based” shipping volume by platform? (Shopify, ebay, etsy, letgo, etc) ex. "how many people are selling on
these platforms?"
3. # of Ebay sellers in country, # of Ebay sellers in Arizona? How many are businesses? How many are individuals?
4. # of Etsy sellers in country, # of Etsy sellers in Arizona?
5. # of home business sellers in country, # of home business sellers in Arizona?
6. Stats on people selling from home… stats that show this is a growing trend

C. Online Returns

1. How many online returns are processed everyday? What about in Arizona?
2. Data on online return processes and the biggest hassles regarding preparing an item to return.

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 a. According to Invesp inforgraphic on online return rates statistics, at least 30% of all products ordered online are returned
compared to only 8.89% bough in brick-and-mortar shops.2
b. 92% of consumers said that they will buy again if product return process is easy whereas 79% of consumers want free return
shipping.3
c. Statistic from eConsultancy show 56% of shoppers want hassle-free return policy.
d. 81% of shoppers want simple, easy and free return
e. 67% of shoppers say they normally check the return page before making a purchase.
f. Moreover 62% of shoppers are more likely to make an online purchase if they can return an item.
g. If you have a cumbersome return policy, you could be missing out on top-tier customers. 27% of shoppers say they would
purchase an item that costs more than $1,000 if it offered free returns while only 10% would do so if it doesn’t offer free
return policy. In other words, bad return policy leads to less sales.
h. Top Reasons why consumers return products
Reason %age
Received wrong item 23%
Product received looks 22%
different
Received damaged 20%
product
Other reasons 35%

3. What % sales do returns make up for an e-commerce company?

a. As per United Parcel Service Inc. that the tide of goods flowing back to e-retailers normally jumps 15% during holiday
seasons
b. According to Whiteboardmag, some retailers experience as much as 50% return rates. US online retailers report a return
rate of between 20% and 40%.

D. Stats on Regular People Shipping things

2
https://www.business2community.com/infographics/e-commerce-product-return-statistics-trends-infographic-01505394
3
https://www.invespcro.com/blog/ecommerce-product-return-rate-statistics/

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 1. How many packages does the average person ship a year?
165,000 million packages are shipped in the US each year4; 21.8% of the World’s population buys online i.e. 1.66 Billion Global Digital
Buyers in 2017 (Statista) out of 7.6 billion people in the World.5 Total population of US is 329 million as of now6; so - 21.8% of 329
million= 71.8 million.

Total packages average person ship a year would be= Total Annual Packages/Total defined US Population

= 165,000/71.8= 2298 (approx.)

2. Surveys/stats on regular people and hassle of shipping an item

UPS and FedEx alone moving 11.6B packages every year! That’s a crazy number.7 On average UPS handle 19M packages a day, total of
6.9B/year. While FedEx handle 13M packages a day, total of 4.7B/year.

Numbers for US market:

UPS handle 7.6M packages every day, while FedEx handle 7.5M every day. UPS handle 1.34M packages every day with 4.9B packages a
year with the following calculation: $15B revenue from packages, divided by $11 average cost per package

So, in nutshell N. America is over 1 million plus per day, 7 days per week (packages are shipped every day)

a. 27% of carts were dropped because the checkout process was too complex or because the site was slow
b. A slow website can increase abandonment by 75%, and loyalty drops 50% when your site is slow.
c. 55% of consumers leave a transaction when presented with an extra shipping cost.
E. Amazon

4
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonbird1/2018/07/29/what-a-waste-online-retails-big-packaging-problem/#4b8cbd63371d
5
https://sleeknote.com/blog/e-commerce-statistics
6
https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/us-population/
7
https://www.quora.com/How-many-packages-are-shipped-every-day

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 1. Stats on Amazon product Returns and the hassle of shipping back items for customers.
2. Stats/surveys showing how easy pick up, packaging, and shipping would help Amazon Customers
F. ADDITIONAL INDUSTRY INFORMATION (US)

Metrics Answer Reference

Market Size $90 billion https://marketrealist.com/2015/07/key-players-us-delivery-services-industry/
[2016]
Total $2 billion https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-
Revenue reports/business-franchises/office-support/packing-shipping-service-
franchises.html
[2019]
Number of 8,427 https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-
Businesses reports/business-franchises/office-support/packing-shipping-service-
franchises.html
[2019]
Annual 2.5% https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-
Growth reports/business-franchises/office-support/packing-shipping-service-
franchises.html
[2014-19]
Industry 19,850 https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-trends/specialized-market-research-
Employment reports/business-franchises/office-support/packing-shipping-service-
franchises.html
[2019]

ROUGH WORK

https://www.oracle.com/webfolder/s/adv/doc1/RT153-SURV-LastMile-Mar-2018.pdf

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 https://econsultancy.com/ecommerce-delivery-what-do-customers-want/

https://www.ups.com/assets/resources/media/en_GB/UPS_POTOS_EU_EN_linked.pdf

https://www.uspsdelivers.com/should-your-business-offer-free-return-shipping/

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-most-popular-package-box-size-What-are-the-dimensions

A.1

https://marketrealist.com/2016/04/ups-us-domestic-package-segment-largest-courier-service-us/

https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_23/Accenture-Adding-Value-to-Parcel-
Delivery.pdf

https://pressroom.ups.com/assets/pdf/2017_UPS_Annual_Report.pdf

https://www.statista.com/statistics/720372/market-size-of-parcel-services-in-united-states-by-segment/

c1

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https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/16/a-260-billion-ticking-time-bomb-the-costly-business-of-retail-returns.html

https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/ecommerce-returns

AMAZON

https://digitalconsumer.com/amazon-is-fighting-back-on-returns/

https://www.repricerexpress.com/amazon-statistics/

https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-statistics/

https://www.nchannel.com/blog/amazon-statistics/

https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/amazon-statistics/

https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazons-free-shipping-attracts-88-of-shoppers/515640/

https://www.readycloud.com/info/these-amazon-statistics-will-make-your-head-spin

https://www.nchannel.com/blog/amazon-statistics/

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https://www.repricerexpress.com/amazon-statistics/

https://mediakix.com/blog/amazon-statistics/