It seems that retailers' excitement over spiking online commerce will be short lived, after new research from Openpay finds that people are ready to reduce online shopping as they return to the office.
As much as a quarter (25 percent) of British consumers polled for the report said they would be shopping less online, as they return to the office. Another important factor, Openpay suggests, seems to be the fact that a third of UK offices banned personal deliveries.
That means that people who want to buy stuff can't have them delivered to their office but rather their home, and that means risking having packages stuffed bins, plant pots or tucked under gates.
But for many people the ban wasn't even necessary – they wouldn't want to have their packages delivered to the office anyway. More than a third don't want their colleagues to know what they spend their money on, and a further third said it was frowned upon to receive too many personal packages.
Some also don't want to be lugging home cumbersome parcels, especially if they need to use public transport and take away valuable space.
“Missing a delivery is always frustrating, so it’s easy to see why Brits took full advantage of being home during lockdown,” commented Andy Harding, UK Managing Director of Openpay.
“With people returning to work, it is quite staggering that so many post rooms have draconian bans on personal parcels. The traditional workplace is changing now more than ever, so it’s time for offices to meet the needs of workers. Every employee is also a consumer and they require flexibility at every point of their purchase, from payment to delivery.”