3 sectors that need to optimize their logistics in e-commerce

We are already familiar with one of the key events that has affected the economy and most of the known sectors on a large scale: the confinement and restrictions due to the pandemic. With the impossibility of opening dispensable physical stores and offering face-to-face services, both large and small companies have had to reinvent their models against the clock to circumvent and adapt to this scenario.

As a result, the e-commerce sector is one of the sectors that is gaining more and more relevance due to the changes that consumers have made in the face of this abrupt change in their habits and are now accustomed to this way of consuming. However, there are important sectors that are not progressing as much in the e-commerce section as expected despite the demand to offer this type of business.

If you want to know some of the sectors with e-commerce potential that need to mature their services, take a look!

Pharmacy

According to this study, more than 75% of patients prefer to use the services of a telepharmacy or receive their medicines at home instead of going to the pharmacy in person, with 9%. However, pharmaceutical e-commerce in Spain has only experienced a growth of 2% compared to other countries such as Italy and Germany, which have had a growth in turnover of 34% and 10% respectively.

This is because infrastructures still need to be improved to ensure data protection on the part of patients and to enable them to use these services at home. Despite this, the pharmaceutical sector has had very good communication in the supply chain to cope with the health crisis and ensure the supply of several drugs.

It is worth noting that one of the solutions that has potential in the face of occasional drug shortages is FarmaHelp, a digital platform that allows a pharmacy to notify and contact other nearby pharmacies when a drug is out of stock and there are supply problems so that the patient can receive it in time. 

Groceries

Food includes everything from basic products necessary in our daily lives to gourmet goods that are usually occasional purchases. In 2020, it experienced a growth of 71.6% in the online channel. In addition to that the market share was 3.5%, from which they turn out to be further away from countries such as France and the United Kingdom, with shares of 8% and 11%, respectively.

One of the e-grocery's concerns is the adaptability of logistics for perishable products with stringent requirements, such as the relatively high cost of the cold chain. It is therefore necessary to establish a stable logistics network that can meet current and future demand.

Another handicap is that this sector usually has to deal with low average tickets, affecting the profitability of logistics operations. For large supermarkets, this is not a problem because of their variety of products, but for a small e-commerce specialized in a specific range of foods, shipping costs are usually high for them. Nor is it a big problem for the gourmet food niche because it offers an expensive product in line with its quality.

Automobile

When talking about the potential of e-commerce in the automotive sector, we usually talk about loose parts and accessories that do not require a mechanic to be replaced, as more complex parts are favored by click & collect. On the other hand, car purchases themselves are still made through visits to dealerships because of their more thoughtful purchase decision and payment terms, with the exception of companies such as Tesla.

It is also known that one of the industry's best-known challenges is its importance in maintaining a very solid logistics network between suppliers and manufacturers, since the manufacture of a car requires more than 20,000 parts. This, if applied to the simplest parts that can be sold in the online channel, turns out to be a good opportunity to boost automotive e-commerce.

It is also worth mentioning that, thanks to this boost to the online channel, interest in buying a car online has increased by 67% in Spain. Everything points to the fact that, for the moment, it is recommended to apply an omnichannel strategy in which the customer has the entire catalog on the website and then closes the purchase by visiting the nearest dealership.

Conclusion

There have been many occasions to talk about the great growth that e-commerce is experiencing and the changes in logistics operations needed to meet this new demand, among them the digitization of the sector. While it is true that e-commerce and the last mile are having a great boost in star industries such as retail (which includes fashion, accessories and personal care), there are others with the potential to have a good online channel, but which still do not have a good foundation and have logistical challenges that make them not yet consolidated as benchmark sectors of online commerce. These include solutions based on optimizing last mile routes.

At Hedyla we are attentive to the new challenges and technologies that logistics in any sector needs to offer you the system that will help you improve your logistics operations.