DHL Sees Rising Demand for Health, Wellness and Home Office supplies Via Strong e-Commerce Sales

DHL eCommerce Solutions, a division of Deutsche Post DHL Group, has seen e-commerce volumes rise to holiday peak levels as consumers shop for health, wellness, home office supplies during the last five weeks while the United States has been under stay-at-home orders due to COVID-19.

As a result, the DHL division has seen volume growth of more than 36 percent in domestic volume and 28 percent cross border volume from the daily averages seen in February.

The top five fastest growing online lightweight product categories are:

1. Nutraceuticals: People are putting a premium on staying healthy and as a result pharmaceutical alternatives, vitamins particularly C and D to improve the immune system are popular, along with dietary, nutritional supplements and whey proteins for exercise enthusiasts.
2. Health & beauty: As beauty, nail and barber shops remain closed in many states there have been significant increases in skincare and custom skincare products for acne, hair dyes, nail polish and removers, artificial nails, face masks and grooming items including clippers and hair accessories.
3. Apparel: With gyms and public spaces closed, workout wear sales have increased with many Americans exercising from home. Additionally, online apparel companies have expanded their product lines to include non-medical grade face shields and cloth masks, an item that will continue to be in demand in the foreseeable future.
4. Pharmaceuticals: Many consumers are uneasy to visit physical retail stores, and as a result there has been a significant surge in mail order pharmaceuticals with monthly or quarterly subscriptions, including high-blood pressure and diabetes medications.
5. Home office accessories and supplies: With many non-essential companies adapting to a remote work model and students attending virtual classrooms, sale of items such as ink and toner, paper, pens, headsets, conference speakers, laptops and associated accessories have spiked.

DHL eCommerce Solutions online apparel customer Love Your Melon recently expanded its product line to include cloth face masks and is using DHL eCommerce Solutions' U.S. network to ship its new line of products domestically and internationally.

“We have seen large volume percentage increases mostly in the Northeast region of the U.S. with a significant amount of volume entering the U.S. inbound from China,” said DHL eCommerce Solutions Americas CEO Lee Spratt. “We have seen holiday peak-level types of volume increases in the last few weeks as China opened once again, but we are also seeing our customers' volumes as representative of various consumer buying trends as a result of the general public's interest in staying healthy and taking on new roles as remote employees and students.”

“We believe many of these e-commerce categories will continue strong into the second and third quarter as social distancing practices and precautions continue and we expect more online retailers to expand their existing online product portfolios to include personal protective equipment,” said Spratt.

In an interview with SCMR, Spratt added that while overall e-commerce is booming, they have seen a surge in demand across our entire network.

“Due to our customer composition we have seen a significant increase in volume in the Northeast, but we have seen a considerable amount in the West Coast, most notably Los Angeles,” he added.

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