Home Delivery Sustainability: Consumers Expect More!

Descartes’ 2nd Annual Home Delivery Sustainability Study

Introduction
Two of the top consumer trends, home delivery and sustainability, are seemingly at odds, yet both are fully embedded in the behavior of most consumers and increasing in importance. How are consumers reconciling the two in their minds and what should retailers do to meet their expectations? Descartes’ second annual home delivery sustainability study of 8,000 consumers in nine countries in Europe and two in North America shows that consumers’ expectation for retailers to provide sustainable delivery options are up significantly compared to 2022. Consumer perception of retailer efforts in home delivery sustainability is improving (43%, up 5% from 2022) but plenty of room for improvement remains.

Top Level Findings
Below are high-level, at-a-glance takeaways from the research:

• More than half of respondents (55%) buy online and get deliveries to their home.
• 41% regularly make purchasing decisions based upon the product or company’s environmental impact.
• 60% are quite/very interested in using more environmentally friendly delivery methods.
• 38% believed that convenience and environmental impact are equally important.
• 27% have stopped shopping at a company before in response to poor environmental delivery practices.

The sustainable consumer

The shift by consumers to be more environmentally conscientious continues as more than half (52%) of respondents indicated that helping the environment is quite/very important to them, up 7% from the 2022 study. A significant number of respondents (41%) indicated that they regularly/always make purchasing decisions based upon product or company environmental impact, also up (2%) from 2022.

Respondents by country indicating they regularly or always make purchasing decisions based upon product or company environmental impact.

Figure 1

Source: Descartes / SAPIO Research

Overall, evaluating products for their environmental impact was up, as respondents not concerned about environmental impact declined from 18% in 2022 to 13% in 2023. The top purchases of concern—groceries (37%) and clothing and footwear (34%)—increased 2% and 4%, respectively. The top three consumer considerations when evaluating products for their environmental impact were:

• Specific environmentally friendly product characteristics at 52%, up 5% from 2022
• Word of mouth from friends/family at 39%, up 2% from 2022
• Company commitment to having a positive environmental impact at 38%, up 5% from 2022

To get a sense of how strongly consumers felt about the environmental impact of different purchases, we asked if they were willing to buy online at a slightly higher price and pick goods up versus buying at a lower price and having goods delivered if they thought it would help the environment. Groceries were at the top of the list for higher price purchase and pickup with 58% indicating they would regularly/always do it followed by clothing and footwear at 51% (both up 6% from 2022).

Delivery preferences

According to Descartes’ 2023 ecommerce home delivery study, consumers intend to buy more online and have orders delivered to their homes with convenience cited as the top reason for the increase. Unsurprisingly, delivery to home was the top choice for online buying at 55%, up 2% from 2022 with in-store pickup second at 25%, down 4% from 2022 and locker-based pickup third at 20%, up 2%.

Consumers are very interested in receiving deliveries using more environmentally friendly delivery methods. A new delivery option for the 2023 survey—100% carbon neutral delivery services—was the top choice at 60% quite/very interested, followed closely by combining orders and delivering them at the end of the week (59%) and having the seller recommend the most environmentally friendly delivery option (56%). All options presented in the 2022 and 2023 surveys were up substantially.

When it comes to the potential environmental impact of home delivery, perception is reality for consumers. Almost half (46%) of respondents believe that buy online and pickup in store is more environmentally friendly, followed by buy online and deliver to home (35%) and, lastly, buy online and pick up at locker (19%).

One way consumers expect to see retailers provide more environmentally friendly delivery options is through the use of electric vehicles. Again, consumers’ expectations are rising quickly. Additionally, 41% of respondents indicated it is quite/very important for delivery agents to offer environmentally friendly delivery services.

Consumer satisfaction and action

If consumer expectations for sustainable home delivery are up, how are retailers performing? Much better than 2022—up 5% to 43%—but the majority of consumers (57%) believe retailers still have a long way to go.

While the previous results point to cautious optimism, a large number of consumers (59%) are taking some form of action that is averse to retailers when they perceive the retailer to have poor environmental home delivery practices. 'Stopped shopping at that company' was the top response at 27%, followed closely by 'told family and friends to avoid the company' at 25%.

Conclusion

Compared to findings in 2022, the degree to which consumer awareness increased in 2023 with respect to retailers’ sustainability efforts, the importance of retailers’ sustainability performance in making purchasing decisions and the interest in sustainable home delivery options is compelling. Considering that, for many consumers, 2023 is a tougher year economically than 2022, this should be a strong indicator to retailers that consumers are quite serious about sustainability, and more willing to buy from retailers that demonstrate it in their home delivery operations.

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