Consumer tradeoff preferences regarding logistics service and sustainability in last-mile delivery

Purpose E-commerce consumers value both forward and reverse logistics services and triple-bottom-line sustainability (cost, CSR and environmental performance). Unfortunately, these aspects of e-commerce can be at odds with one another. Therefore, a major challenge for e-commerce retailers lies in balancing the importance of forward and reverse logistics services with concerns about triple-bottom-line sustainability. To help e-commerce retailers better understand this challenge, our study delves into US consumers' tradeoff preferences related to delivery, returns and sustainability performances. Design/methodology/approach Policy capturing is a method employed by researchers to assess how individual decision-makers use available information when making evaluative tradeoffs between factors. We employ a policy-capturing method with 364 participants. Findings We find different consumers' tradeoff preferences in different groups in the USA. We observed that environmental concerns are paramount for younger respondents, but cost is more important for older respondents. Also, delivery performance is regarded as more significant than returns performance. Research limitations/implications Our findings imply that the demographic background of consumers plays a role in their purchasing behaviors. E-commerce retailers need to consider the psychological attitudes and age of the consumers. Practical implications Environmental performance seems to matter more to younger respondents relative to their older counterparts, so e-commerce retailers will need to adjust their strategies accordingly. We see some examples of e-commerce retailers trying to use this shift in attitudes to their advantage. Originality/value While literature has demonstrated that triple-bottom-line sustainability and logistics service are key consumer considerations in e-commerce, it has not yet been established how consumers evaluate these disparate and sometimes orthogonal factors in tandem. Our research aims to fill this gap.