The British e-commerce industry should lobby for a much higher ‘de minimis’ level for exports to the EU to help cope with the looming impact of Brexit on the sector, according to a senior industry figure.
The current very low €22 figure should be raised to €500, urged MetaPack CEO Patrick Wall at The Delivery Conference in London today.
Commenting on the potential impact of Brexit on the UK e-commerce delivery sector, he said: “The way things are developing at the moment we will not be in the single market within two and a half years. At best, we will be in a customs union with 8% tariffs between the UK and Europe. Or we could have a WTO agreement with 10-20% tariffs.
“It’s a serious issue if we have to manage customs duties and tariffs. It’s certainly an inhibitor to trade,” he warned.
Addressing over 1,000 senior retail and delivery managers at the MetaPack-organised event, Wall said the British e-commerce sector needed to speak “with one voice” to lobby government in order to influence legislation.
“There’s a need for a single voice. It will become a critical issue. We have to argue for €500,” he urged.
Looking back at 2016 ‘peak season’ trends, Wall highlighted how volumes had increased in November due to the ‘Cyber Weekend’, with strong growth in click & collect and also international volumes. There had also been a move to more next-day deliveries for weekends and in the last few days before Christmas.
MetaPack itself handled more than 49 million parcels system-wide during the peak season from Cyber Weekend until the New Year, including over 2.3 million on ‘Peak Day’ in the week ending November 27, he told the conference.
Cross-border volumes within the system increased by as much as 20-25% in 2016 as a whole, with a 4% shift in the second half of the year as the drop in the value of the pound made British products cheaper for international online shoppers.
“Exporters benefited from the pound’s devaluation. There’s quite a lot of price sensitivity,” he commented.
The MetaPack CEO also highlighted several moves towards sharing capacity to enable better delivery performance. These included Doddle’s open parcel shop network, CollectPlus’ plan to work with other carriers apart from Yodel, ASDA’s open delivery service ToYou and Argos’ click & collect partnership with eBay. Another example was John Lewis’ move to offer shared capacity in three hubs for other retailers.
“This is a key message that this level of collaboration is needed to respond to increasing consumer demand,” he commented. “It’s a paradigm shift.”
