by Walther Ploos van Amstel
For urban planners, retailers and logistics companies, the growing flow of products from manufacturer to consumer presents new challenges. What is the impact of increasing e-commerce in our European cities? And what can be done to facilitate this transformation of our shopping habits?
The growth of e-commerce is accompanied by an increasing distribution of parcels in cities resulting in externalities like traffic congestion or emissions. As a consequence, different delivery concepts like bike deliveries or delivery points have been suggested. Most companies will only accept these changes, if they do not result in higher cost of delivery.
Tatjana Mirosnicenko won the 2018 KPMG-RSM Sustainability Master Thesis Award for her thesis entitled E-grocery: the effectiveness of content sharing on social media in promoting green slot choice behavior. The MSc graduate was presented the award at the RSM Sustainability Forum 2018, hosted by the Dutch Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM).
City logistics makes an important contribution to the quality of life that people experience in cities. The liveability of cities is under pressure, partly caused by growing number of ‘last mile’ E-commerce deliveries. Various (f)actors involved in the last mile have led to smart initiatives in the sector.
New opportunities arise to design profitable last-mile delivery strategies. In particular, companies can influence customer behavior by choosing the lead-times or time-slots that are offered (capacity controls) and as well as their associated fees (pricing controls). These decisions ultimately seek to balance the capacity utilization and increase the profitability of the delivery operation.
A new Robeco report presents investment opportunities in growing e-commerce: warehouse automation providers, prime warehouse owners, software companies. E-commerce is booming, exposing its logistic backbone to an ever increasing bill. The e-commerce sector is therefore trying to find cheaper solutions with the help of innovative tools, such as robots that are learning to see and pick …
Home deliveries are the preferred method of delivery for consumers today. But, due to the specific, costly nature of home deliveries together with changes within society e.g. people working longer and more flexible hours and the competition between logistics providers, new more sustainable alternatives are being implemented. Automated parcel lockers being such an alternative.
Customer involvement is regarded as a new way to increase last mile efficiency. Improved delivery designs call for customer involvement although it is not clear how customers can be involved and what the consequences are for organizations and customers involved in the last mile.
An increase in e-commerce in B2B, B2C and C2C markets has given rise to a greater number of challenges around urban freight: increasing use of public space, pollution levels, noise, road congestion and safety. E-commerce results in more, and smaller, and time critical deliveries in cities. It’s clear that there is a need for improving …
Growth in e-commerce has led to increasing use of light goods vehicles for parcel deliveries in urban areas. A new paper by UK researchers provides an insight into the reasons behind this growth and the resulting effort required to meet the exacting parcel services offered by e-retailers which often lead to poor vehicle utilisation in the …