Strong economic growth, rising online retail sales, a growing number of internet, smartphone users and the government initiatives are driving the e-commerce business in the Philippines market. According to a research, online retail sales in the Philippines market are expects to outgrow some of the currently more developed markets in the region, such as Malaysia and Singapore, by 2025.
Logistics is the backbone of e-commerce and one of the crucial points for success in the e-commerce business. For flawless delivery, a robust logistics network plays a vital role. The Philippines’ e-commerce logistics market will continue to experience substantial growth due to the shift from offline to online sales. Above all, the increasing e-commerce customer expectations like same-day delivery, reverse logistics, and accurate delivery tracking as value-added services are heavily depended on the logistical capability. All these depend on a solid and efficient logistical infrastructure backed by technology.
Driven by the increased e-commerce activity, the future of the Philippines’ logistics market lies in the accelerated adoption of digitalization. The early adopters of technology are already in an advantageous position compared to the competition. Digitalization has helped them provide greater flexibility to adapt to new business opportunities, transparency, real-time tracking, and increased operational efficiencies and productivity in the e-commerce business. To address the inefficiencies caused by the manual process, such as repetitive data entry, quotations and shipment status updates by mail or phone, and discrepancies of invoices, the Philippines logistics industry has turned to accelerate its digitalization.
Moreover, many renowned international players, like FedEx, UPS, DHL, and Kuehne + Nagel, are making strategic investments to establish a regional logistics network powered by the latest technologies, thus giving tough competition to local logistics service providers.
With the rising demand for effective logistics services, the demand for digitalization is also rising hand in hand. By adopting cloud-based logistics solutions, logistics players can seize more opportunities presented by the growing e-commerce industry in the Philippines market.
Going digital will help provide transparency regarding delivery status, shorten lead times, minimize port congestion, and adapt to changing customer expectations. When the customers are provided with real-time online updates regarding their orders, lessening the need for constant coordination ensures a better customer experience.
Eliminating redundancies and digitalizing the documentation and approval systems can significantly improve import clearance processing times and increase efficiency.
Through all this, there is the added pressure for the logistics industry to digitize as e-
commerce and online shopping become more prevalent, and customer experience is becoming the key differentiator for businesses. Certainly the logistics industry in the Philippines will evolve with new technologies to increase efficiency, improve customer experience, and enhance service quality.
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