Sustainable last-mile distribution in B2C e-commerce: Do consumers really care?

Abstract

Over the past few years, consumers have prioritized cost and speed over sustainability when referring to ecommerce decisions, ignoring the impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with last-mile distribution of the purchased products. There are numerous research calls to enhance our understanding about such a phenomenon. To help address this gap, this work investigates how motivated B2C (business-to-consumer) e-consumers are to prioritize sustainability over speed (delivery time) and cost in their orders. To do that, a survey was applied to 421 respondents, and results showed that delivery speed was the most important purchase criterion to consumers, followed by delivery cost, lastly, environmental information. The potential for consumer flexibilization was greater to delivery speed over cost. Demographic characteristics (gender, age, wage, and education) influenced the motivation to give priority to last-mile deliveries linked to sustainability. Also the delivery speed sacrifice accepted by consumers depends on the purchase order (type of product): categories of products, such as fashion and accessories and sport and leisure are more accepted over health/cosmetics/perfumery or food and beverages. Results also suggest that there is potential to educate e-consumers when purchasing online by helping them revise their priorities with the help of spreading environmental information.

Keywords

• B2C
• Sustainability
• Last-mile distribution
• Transportation
• E-commerce
• Consumer behavior