Last-mile delivery services in retail : a consumer-centric approach

Abstract: The retail industry faces a multitude of complex sustainability challenges, which calls for transformational change. While the retail industry is a major driver of production and consumption patterns, it also offers significant potential to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Notably, logistics services, such as warehousing, delivery, and returns, have gained vital importance in retail due to the continuous growth of e-commerce and the development toward omnichannel retail. Escalating parcel shipping volumes have sparked growing interest in last-mile delivery among scholars and practitioners. In fact, last-mile delivery has been described as the most expensive, least efficient, and most polluting part of the supply chain. Despite the recognition of the growing importance of the consumer, scholarly investigations on last-mile delivery from the consumer perspective remain fragmented and rather limited. Building on the notion that changing consumer demands and behavioral patterns represent the primary drivers of change in the retail industry, the purpose of this research is to explore the consumer perspective on last-mile delivery to provide a foundation for more sustainable retail business models.This dissertation compiles the results of four papers from four separate, yet subsequent, studies. The first study, a systematic literature review, proposed a framework of last-mile logistics research that consists of five interrelated components. The review identified a lack of consumer research in last-mile logistics. The second study, a multiple case study, explores customer expectations of an unattended home delivery service in e-grocery retail. The study captured three types of services expectations—desired service, expected standard service, and predicted service—which are formed by three determinants; personal needs, technology literacy, and situational factors. The third study, an engaged scholarship field study, explored customer experience of an unattended home delivery service in e-grocery retail. The study found that the total customer experience in last-mile delivery is multidimensional, comprising consumers’ cognitive, emotional, behavioral, sensorial, physical, and social responses to the service. The fourth study, a collaborative study, explored the drivers of circular business model innovation and how to accelerate this process in fashion retail. The study proposes that consumer centricity acts as a main driver of circular business model innovation, and that logistics acts as a catalyst that accelerates this process, which contributes to the transformation of fashion retail towards the circular economy. This dissertation contributes to research in multiple ways. The results of this dissertation shed light on the last-mile delivery customer journey in retail by mapping forms and determinants of customer expectations and by providing a rich understanding of customer experience dimensions. The findings illustrate how customer experience has become more logistics and supply chain-related. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to the literature by identifying patterns of circular business model innovation and illustrates how consumer centricity and logistics affect the transition of retail business models toward circular economy.This dissertation also holds multiple implications for practice. This research indicates that consumer centricity holds significant potential to reduce the environmental impact of last-mile delivery. Retailers can leverage consumer centricity to encourage consumers to adopt more sustainable last-mile delivery services and accept longer lead times and time windows. Moreover, managers are encouraged to take advantage of consumer centricity as an innovation driver and logistics as a catalyst in circular business model innovation to unfold the full potential of the circular economy.