Customer loyalty begins at the doorstep: Enhancing relationships through delivery excellence
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We surveyed over 6,000 consumers across the UK, France, Italy, and Spain to find out how to boost customer loyalty through delivery strategy.
Improve your ecommerce delivery strategy, understand differences across European markets, and find out what consumers really think about brands who don't live up to delivery expectations.
What can you learn from this report?
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The delivery-loyalty connection: Discover how delivery experiences directly influence customer loyalty and retention, with actionable strategies to turn every doorstep moment into a loyalty-building opportunity.
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Insights from 6,000+ European consumers: Gain an in-depth understanding of regional differences in delivery preferences and how these impact e-commerce success across the UK, France, Italy, and Spain.
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Key drivers of delivery satisfaction: Learn about the most critical delivery factors—cost, speed, tracking, and reliability—and how they shape consumer decisions and loyalty.
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The 'Delivery-Loyalty Feedback Model': Explore an innovative framework highlighting eight pivotal moments in the delivery journey that can make or break a customer relationship.
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Future-proof your delivery strategy: Equip your business with cutting-edge insights on personalising delivery options, integrating sustainable practices, and optimising delivery resilience to stay ahead in a competitive market
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About this report
In the evolving world of digital commerce, the delivery journey has emerged as a vital interaction point for brands. As online shopping continues to grow, retailers face the challenge of fostering deeper connections with their cusomters. Enhancing and refining this crucial phase of the customer journey can significantly boost satisfaction levels. This research provides actionable guidance on leveraging the delivery process to strengthen customer bonds and drive long-term loyalty.
Key insights
Contents
- Introduction & key insights
- Section 1: The e-commerce delivery landscape across Europe
- Section 2: Understanding consumers for delivery excellence
- Section 3: The future of delivery options — innovating for tomorrow’s consumer
- Conclusion
Section 1: The e-commerce delivery landscape across Europe.
The retail landscape across Europe is rapidly evolving, propelled by technological advancements like AI together with increasingly complex omnichannel customer journeys.
At the same time, a constrained financial climate means brands need to find new ways to differentiate themselves. Against this background, delivery services have emerged as a pivotal battleground for customer satisfaction and loyalty. Online shopping behaviour varies across Europe, with the UK leading in online sales penetration for non-food retail, while France, Spain, and Italy are slightly less online.
However, online sales are growing, and delivery is becoming increasingly central to consumer purchasing decisions. Our research shows that 42% of consumers in the UK, France, Italy, and Spain primarily shop online, while 58% still prefer physical stores, driven by the demand for convenience (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 – Shopping channel preference averages across survey regions for non-food
Which statement best describes your shopping habits for non-food products?
Source: Retail Economics
Creating customer loyalty feedback loops with delivery
Delivery is a critical factor for customer loyalty, with 81% of consumers across survey regions saying it influences their decision to shop with a retailer again. Nearly a third of consumers (30%) have stopped shopping with a retailer because of a poor delivery experience, rising to nearly half (47%) for those under 35, who appear particularly intolerant of poor experiences.
High income households are also more likely to be intolerant of mistakes than low or middle income, with 37% of households earning £61k (€73k) or more annually abandoning a retailer because of a poor delivery experience.
Brands are recognising that delivery can be successfully leveraged to win customer loyalty. When businesses get delivery right, a self-re-enforcing, positive feedback loop can be created. We present a ‘Delivery-Loyalty Feedback Model’ (Fig. 3) that identifies eight important sub-stages within the customer journey that offer the potential to ‘make or break’ a customer relationship.
The loyalty feedback loop is easily broken, however. A majority of consumers report having experienced some form of problem with the delivery process — an issue that can lead to customers abandoning retailers.
The most impactful delivery problems include products being damaged in transit, delays or mistakes in the delivery service, and poor customer support or communication when problems arise.
Fig. 3 – The Amazon Shipping ‘Delivery-Loyalty Feedback Model’
Source: Retail Economics
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- Learn about the 'Customer delivery-loyalty ecosystem'
- Delivery factors driving loyalty by key European markets
- Target cohorts
- Delivery personas
- The future of delivery and more...
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