Food and online retailers are racing to expand their logistics presence in urban locations as the acceleration of ecommerce sales continues to transform the sector across Europe.

Taking the UK as a sample market, CBRE has determined that the country experienced five years’ growth in online sales within just six months. Internet penetration in the country surged from 19 percent in February to 33 percent in June. When most stores reopened in July after the UK’s first national lockdown, the ecommerce proportion of retail sales only fell by 500 basis points, to 28 percent in August. The advisory firm has now revised its internet retail penetration forecasts for 2020-21 and beyond, expecting UK penetration to average over 26 percent in 2020 and 23 percent in 2021, effectively skipping half a decade of growth from previous forecasts.

Online grocery has been a major driver of online retail adoption, with internet food shopping soaring in many European countries. In the UK