Delivery services used by online shippers in US
Even though the nation's package deliverers are busier than expected this holiday season, due in part to the Northeast snowstorms the past two weekends, there is still time to get online purchases delivered by Christmas.
Monday was expected to be the busiest day of the year for online shopping, according to the online shopping search engine BizRate.com. But most of the purchases made Monday will get into their various delivery channels after the highest volume of packages have already moved through the systems.
Wednesday is the busiest delivery day of the year for the U.S. Postal Service, with Monday being the busiest day for dropoffs. United Parcel Service expects its busiest delivery day this Thursday, but most of those packages will have been in their system for at least several days. FedEx Express, the leader in overnight deliveries, expects its busiest night for traffic to be next Monday night, the 22nd.
The latest data from Forrester research, conducted in a poll of 12,000 online buyers earlier this year, showed UPS still has a commanding lead with online buyers, with 57 percent of online buyers overall followed by USPS with 23 percent of online shoppers and FedEx a distant third with only 7 percent.
Breaking it down further, 57 percent of men and 53 percent of women report primarily using UPS. BizRate.com's research shows that men are less concerned with the lowest price and more concerned with the on-time delivery of packages. Some of the difference in delivery service used is also due to differences in the types of goods purchased online by the two genders, said Forrester researcher Chris Kelley. Kelley said different online sites use different delivery options.
FedEx is used for most online purchases by 7 percent of men and only 4 percent of women, according to Forrester. That's greatly due to FedEx's strength being in the expedited deliveries shunned by many online buyers.
Shop.org, the online shopping unit of the National Retail Federation, found in a survey of consumers that only 10 percent wanted expedited deliveries, only slight above the 8 percent who wanted to pick up online purchases in a store. Forrester's data back up that finding.
"By and large consumers are going to pay as little as possible unless their backs are against the wall and they're starting to buy late in this week or even next week," said Kelley.
FedEx, which is set to report fiscal second quarter results on Wednesday, has been making a bigger push in the home deferred delivery market, with packages delivered in three days or more. FedEx Home, the ground service making home deliveries, reached nationwide coverage just over a year ago. This year it has nearly doubled the number of businesses shipping using the service, with 41,000, up from 24,000 for the 2002 holiday shipping season. Kelley said he'd be surprised if FedEx moved up significantly in the online deliveries race.
"They've been pushing FedEx Home for a couple of years now," he said. "The increases they've been making are marginal up to this point."
Analysts say that online retailing was already expected to show between a 25 and 42 percent gain in holiday shopping between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and some believe the storms could lift sales even more.
"We've noticed in the past, when weather is bad online, shopping does benefit," said Helen Malani, spokeswoman for BizRate.com.
Traditional retailers fare OK
The shift to online shopping is not necessarily bad news for traditional retailers. About three-quarters of online shopping is done with retailers who have traditional stores or catalog operations as well, said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org, the National Retail Federation's online shopping unit.
"Instead of driving through the snow to go to Circuit City, they might be going to circuitcity.com," said Silverman.
But Carrie Johnson, retail analyst for Forrester Research, said that the online-only retailers are likely to grab at least part of any shift to online shopping caused by the weather.
"I think online shopping definitely got a boost from weather," she said. "I think consumers will inevitably will broaden store search online vs. off line. They'll also stick with online or catalog retailers who they know are reliable in the past."
When consumers go online, they will find most online retailers are offering some form of free shipping this holiday season, according to Silverman, although some of those offers are expiring as Christmas gets closer.
