The van market is on the rise and is the fastest growing traffic segment in the UK. With 70% growth in road miles over the last 20 years, compared to 12% for cars, and 5.5% for lorries, it seems that in the future there could be more vans on the road than cars.
[REITs]With the growth of online shopping, and the change from in-store purchasing to online purchasing, e-commerce companies are desperately seeking more and more deliveries drivers to deal with their every growing demand. Not only are vans being purchased to meet this delivery demand, the leasing of vans is on the rise too, as savvy business people are seeing an opportunity to get involved with the e-commerce boom and grabbing hold of it. More drivers are making the switch to become self-employed, choosing to freelance for delivery companies in order to meet the growing number of online orders.
The number of online orders is becoming astounding, causing a negative effect on physical shops and causing online companies to step up their warehouse processes. Many brands have chosen to place distribution centres around the country and rely on delivery companies to reach to specific locations rather than working through the Post Office.
In 2016, the total UK market for e-commerce deliveries was 2.7bn packages. E-Commerce parcel volumes are growing at 9% annually and the UK is only second to China when it comes to delivery growth over the past few years. Whilst surprisingly, the USA is a far distance behind China and the UK. The Parcel Market Boom in 2017 saw the UK parcel market reach the £10 billion mark in annual turnover. According to the ‘Parcel Shipping Index’ by Putney Bowes, this number was a result of a 48% increase in deliveries over the past two years, with a predicted forecast of another 20% rise every year between 2017-2021. This is due to the vast amount of internet transactions taking place, which now account for 15% of Britain’s retails sales. This is translating into monetary figures for the UK economy as the UK public spent around £133 billion online, a figure that is expected to continue growth year on year into the future, so this shows a positive way forward and allows for greater opportunities for different people online in the future.
As the move to commerce becomes digital and more flexible, employment has also changed to become more adaptable around own people’s lifestyles. With the move to self-employment, drivers can work flexible hours and can fit their working days around their own lives, which is appealing to many with families or other employment. An easy way to get into the delivery business, is by leasing a van, as this allows the drivers to quickly enter into delivery employment without causing the large financial strain of purchasing a van at the beginning, explaining the growth of van leasing over the past few years
The dramatic growth of self-employment, e-commerce and the number of vans on the road all appear to interlink. We’ll be looking into these stats in more detail as well as taking a closer look at the market overall, whilst also adding some of the most popular vans currently on the garage floor in case you’re thinking of capitalising on the online delivery / self-employment boom yourself.
See this is in the infographic by Select Car Leasing below.
