Consumer perspective on the future of last mile delivery in India

Abstract

Online shopping businesses grown significantly in India. Consumers find out that purchasing products online is more effective. Most of consumers in India prefer direct home/door step delivery as their last-mile delivery method, which proposes consumers to receive the purchased goods at home. Due to influence on the growing demand for deliveries, which consequently could have the impact on traffic and congestion problem as well as city environment, one of the biggest problems with home deliveries are not at home which gradually increases more trips which tends to further increase in Co2 emission and congestion as well as it increases the cost of delivery companies. E-commerce has the potential to reduce the distance travelled by consumers, but it also leads to an increase in the distance travelled by delivery service vehicles. As a result, new environmental problems arise, highlighting the need for alternative measures to mitigate the negative impact of this trend. In recent years, parcel lockers have emerged as a popular and intriguing solution for efficient last-mile delivery. This study is focused on examining customers’ intentions to utilize parcel lockers. The parcel locker method emerged as a solution that offers benefits to both consumers and package delivery operators, as it can reduce the distance travelled by both parties. The lockers receive packages that are subsequently collected, sorted, and transported to other designated lockers. Customers then retrieve their items by traveling to the specified locker location. It could minimize the delivery trips, less routing and analyse the potency of parcel lockers in India as there is currently no parcel lockers available in India. This study benefits delivery companies to implement parcel lockers in India as it could minimize the last-mile delivery cost as it was considered more costly than first mile. This study clarifies customers perspective to use smart locker as a last mile delivery. As this also minimize pollution will be more environment friendly in comparison with direct home delivery. This study was to carry out and check Indian consumers will they use parcel locker in future. This study carried out through online surveys with 6 variable that are environment friendly and sustainable, delivery preference, perceived risk, convenience, security, and perceived benefit, where 155 respondents participated. In terms of delivery services, survey participants showed a preference for parcel lockers (63%) over direct delivery.