Evaluating Sustainable Last-Mile Delivery (LMD) in B2C E-Commerce Using Two-Stage Fuzzy MCDM Approach: A Case Study From Vietnam

Abstract

As the world attempts to control the spread of COVID-19 and adapt to shifting limitations, routines, and best practices, online ordering is an absolute necessity. With e-commerce activities surging, businesses in the last-mile delivery (LMD) industry find that their services are needed now more than ever before. Higher expectations of customers for speed, convenience, and sustainability have underlined the importance of reliable last-mile providers. This study aims to evaluate some key LMD companies in Vietnam regarding their sustainability performance. For this evaluation, the present research proposes a fuzzy multi-criteria decision-making (F-MCDM) based framework combining the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (FAHP) and the fuzzy weighted aggregated sum product assessment (FWASPAS), and triangular fuzzy numbers are applied to express the linguistic evaluation statements of experts. FAHP was utilized for the determination of criteria weights, then based on the most impactful criteria, FWASPAS was used to prioritize the companies. Delivery time, order fulfillment, decarbonization, convenience of payment, and real-time tracking systems have been ranked as the most impactful criteria in the LMD sector. The robustness of the proposed model was tested by conducting a sensitivity analysis. The results reach common rankings, in which Grab Express is the best performing company in the LMD landscape. The obtained results can be utilized as a guideline for the LMD managers and decision-makers to take in-depth consideration on their businesses under broader aspects to win customers and compete with other competitors.

Keywords

• Last-mile delivery
• conflicting criteria
• multi-criteria decision-making
• fuzzy theory
• B2C e-commerce
• weight fluctuation