25%+ of UK shoppers subscribe to fast-delivery saver schemes - study

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Oct 16, 2019

It may seem counter-intuitive to some people to pay in advance for a service that saves you money on future product orders that you might not actually place, but such schemes are becoming ever more popular with UK consumers.

Based on a survey of more than 10,000 people, a study on Wednesday said that more than a quarter of non-food online shoppers have subscribed to one, such as Amazon Prime or Asos Premier, in the past 12 months, as their desire for fast, low-cost fulfilment increases.

That’s according to GlobalData, which also said that the percentage rises to 44.8% for the 16-24-year-old demographic that's well-served by fashion retailers offering schemes as they buy online frequently, and have high expectations of fulfilment options.

And the popularity of these schemes really does underline the growth of online shopping in the UK with large numbers of consumers prepared to pay upfront for faster, ‘free’ delivery because they know the chances of them placing several online orders a month are very high.

But there’s a limit to how much consumers will be ready to pay.

Emily Salter, Retail Analyst at GlobalData, said: “The price of Asos Premier increased from £9.95 to £14.99 in August 2019, but since the cost of its next-day delivery is £5.95 outside of Premier and the retailer sells a huge range of products and brands, this rise was justified. However, at the start of October Asos lowered the price back down to £9.95 after less than two months – proving that consumers were not willing to pay more, and other competitors’ schemes are also pegged at the £10 mark.” 

Rather than raising the price of their saver schemes, a number of clothing and footwear retailers have increased the price of their next-day delivery instead, thereby making the saver schemes seem much more attractive in comparison. Missguided increased its next-day delivery cost from £3.99 to £5.99 this year and Boohoo has increased its charge from £4.99 to £5.99.