Do e-commerce customers change their preferred last-mile delivery based on its sustainability impact?

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore if e-commerce customers change their preferred last-mile delivery, when they are provided with additional information on the environmental and social sustainability impact of the available last-mile delivery options.

Design/methodology/approach

We conduct a stated-preference survey and apply McNemar test on the collected data.

Findings

The results show that displaying the environmental and social impacts of last-mile deliveries influences E-commerce customers, and generally makes them more likely to choose a more sustainable last-mile delivery.

Research limitations/implications

The main limitations are (1) the possible inconsistency between participants' intentions stated in the survey and their actual behaviour in real life and (2) the possibility of participants denying socially undesirable behaviours. Further research can study e-commerce customers' real behaviour.

Practical implications

E-retailers and logistics companies could implement transparent information sharing on the delivery sustainability impact on all three sustainability pillars.

Social implications

The suggested transparent information sharing has the potential to change customers' behaviours towards more sustainable deliveries.

Originality/value

We provide a new approach in investigating customers' preferences on last-mile deliveries, by giving E-customers the chance of making choices between different deliveries, not only based on the economic factors (as in common practice nowadays) but also based on the environmental and social factors.

Citation

Ignat, B. and Chankov, S. (2020), "Do e-commerce customers change their preferred last-mile delivery based on its sustainability impact?", The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 521-548. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-11-2019-0305