Sales are increasing at 8.8% year on year. By 2027, online purchases are expected to account for 23% of all retail sales worldwide (1).
For brands shipping physical products, this is an opportunity. But growth in orders only converts to growth in revenue if your operations can keep up.
This is where many brands run into difficulty.
The market is not slowing down
Global ecommerce is on track to reach $7.9 trillion by 2027 (2).
In Australia, the shift is already well underway. Consumers are spending more online, buying from more retailers, and making decisions faster. The platforms and tools that make it easy to compare options and switch brands have lowered the cost of disloyalty.
For brands, this means the operational bar is rising. Customers who were once willing to wait a few days for delivery are increasingly making purchase decisions based on when something will arrive.
Fulfilment is part of what makes a customer choose you, and come back.
Slow shipping and high costs are losing you sales
70% of online shopping carts are abandoned before checkout (3).
The two biggest reasons are delivery speed and cost. 24% of shoppers abandon their cart because shipping is too slow. 47% leave because of extra costs, including delivery fees, added at checkout.
These are not website problems or marketing problems. They are fulfilment problems.
A 3PL with same-day dispatch removes the speed barrier. One with negotiated carrier rates gives brands the option to absorb or reduce delivery costs without eroding margin. Together, they address the two leading reasons customers don’t complete a purchase.
Nearly one in four customers leave over delivery speed. That is a fulfilment decision showing up as lost revenue.
Peak season is getting bigger every year
Black Friday and Cyber Monday are no longer a single-day event.
- In 2023, Black Friday generated $9.8 billion in US online sales, up 7.5% on the year before.
- Cyber Monday followed with $12.4 billion, up 9.6%.
- Across the full November to December period, holiday spending reached $222.1 billion (4).
Fulfilment operations that are built for average weekly volume will struggle under that kind of sustained pressure. The brands that get through peak season cleanly tend to have a few things in place:
- A cost model that scales with volume rather than requiring fixed overhead investment
- Warehouse capacity that does not cap order intake during high-demand periods
- Pick-and-pack processes that hold accuracy under pressure
Fulfilment setups that are built only for average weeks will break when peak season starts to test its flexibility.
Mobile and social are making demand harder to predict
91% of online purchases are now made via smartphone. By 2027, mobile commerce is expected to account for 62% of all retail sales (5).
Social commerce adds another layer of unpredictability. Social-driven purchases are often impulse buys, triggered by a post or video. 40% of consumers have made a purchase because of social media influence. Social commerce as a category is expected to reach $8.5 trillion by 2030 (6).
What this changes for fulfilment is the nature of demand spikes. A product that gains traction on social media does not give you warning. Orders arrive quickly, and the window to convert that moment is short. Brands that can dispatch same-day keep the sale. Those that can’t often lose it to a cancellation or a return driven by frustration.
More frequent, smaller orders driven by mobile also means higher shipment volume even when average order value stays flat. The pick-and-pack operation needs to be leaner than the revenue numbers might suggest.
You cannot predict when a product takes off but you can make sure your fulfilment can move when it does.
Cross-border selling needs the right footprint
52% of online shoppers buy internationally (7). For Australian brands, New Zealand is a natural first step into cross-border selling. For New Zealand brands, Australia represents a significantly larger market.
But selling across the Tasman without multi-location fulfilment creates a delivery experience that is hard to make competitive. Customers on either side of the Tasman expect delivery timeframes that reflect their geography, not yours.
Multi-location fulfilment is what lets you make a credible delivery promise to customers who are not in the same city as your warehouse.
What this means for your fulfilment strategy
Each of these pressures is manageable in isolation. Together, they describe an operational environment that is genuinely difficult to stay ahead of without the right infrastructure.
More orders, harder peaks, less predictable volume spikes, and customers who will leave over delivery speed or cost. Brands that are still managing fulfilment in-house will feel these pressures compounding.
Coghlan has been helping Australian and New Zealand ecommerce brands navigate exactly this for more than 37 years.
With warehouses in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, same-day dispatch, a variable cost model that scales with your volume, and direct integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento and eBay, we handle the operational complexity so you can focus on growth.
Explore Coghlan’s ecommerce fulfilment services or speak with the team to discuss what a fulfilment strategy looks like for your brand.
(1) EMARKETER
(2) EMARKETER
(3) ContentSquare
(4) Adobe
(6) Statista
(7) Statista
