E-commerce is still a big challenge

The survey reveals that 70 pct of B2C companies and 60 pct of B2B companies are still working towards the full implementation of their strategy, even though 70 pct of respondents rate e-commerce as 'Very Important' or 'Extremely Important' to their business in terms of volume and revenue.

The report, titled "The e-commerce supply chain: Overcoming growing pains", also uncovered the major barriers to full strategy implementation, which include changing customer expectation, pace of delivery, and limitations in existing infrastructure.

"It's clear to see the importance of considering quality customer service within the e-commerce strategy, but with customer expectations constantly evolving and changing, companies are under pressure to keep up with building out their e-commerce offerings - and the new supply chains they require, resulting in the challenge of full implementation. Supply chains need to keep up with, and respond to new business models, service expectations and technological needs of customers in order to capture new ones and retain existing ones," said Nabil Malouli, global e-commerce product lead at DHL Supply Chain.