“Logistics has become marketing,” concludes Heleen Buldeo Rai, a researcher in urban logistics at the Université Gustave Eiffel. Delivery should be free and preferably the same day because that is what consumers expect. But is that truly the case?
Consumers are relatively flexible
When it comes to e-commerce and sustainability, the last mile is consistently the focus of attention. Rightly so, or wrongly so? Indeed, delivery to the consumer remains the most expensive, important and polluting part of the supply chain. That is what Heleen Buldeo Rai, who works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Logistics City chair of the Gustave Eiffel University in Paris, concludes from a recent study. She also published a book on e-commerce and sustainability called “Duurzaam online shoppen, praktijkgids voor e-commerce van morgen“, which translates as “Sustainable online shopping, a practical guide to tomorrow’s e-eommerce”.
According to the cliché, making consumers pay for delivery is simply not an option, and anyone not offering ‘next day delivery’ is desperately missing out. “Even when the consumer doesn’t necessarily want it, it feels like it has to be this way. A market standard has been set, and smaller e-commerce players, in particular, can hardly afford to deviate. Logistics has become marketing.
However, for consumers, it does not have to be that fast, necessarily. “We know from international research that the consumer can be relatively flexible, especially when delivery is free of charge. The online shopper is price-conscious, so the latter remains the most important factor.” In addition, there are other things that consumers want, but which are much less taken into account. For example, they find very large packaging or orders that arrive in two or three shipments much more annoying than waiting an additional day. Buldeo Rai also notices a demand for delivery on a day of choice, for example, when people are confident that they will be at home.
Global marketplaces are more polluting
So how do you make more sustainable choices in the last mile? As a retailer, there are several ways to incentivise consumers. The first is financial: free delivery and returns for those who can wait longer or a discount on sustainable delivery. But there are also very interesting alternatives, which Buldeo Rai sees too little in practice. For example, the British online supermarket Ocado indicates the ecological efficiency by colour coding specific time slots. Also, showing the difference in carbon emissions between various delivery options, or even just indicating the most environmentally friendly option using, for example, a green leaf, really works. “Engage with the consumer; communication truly makes a difference.”
However, the process preceding the last mile of large global platforms such as Amazon and AliExpress is also a lot more polluting than local physical trade. Those large platforms have a very different footprint than, say, e-commerce orders at a Belgian retailer like Schoenen Torfs, which stores and ships everything from one place. Therefore, the argument that platforms eliminate intermediaries is more an economic than an ecological argument.
“At AliExpress, parcels flying out of China journey around the world. Fortunately not always by air, but the B2C platforms feel the pressure to get orders to consumers as quickly as possible, which makes it more prone to polluting means of transport”, explains Buldeo Rai. Stock from physical stores could also come from the Far East, but the difference with B2B shipments is in the bundling. “As a result, there is less packaging, boats or trains get loaded more efficiently, and transport is more efficient.”
Returning in-store
Whether picking up your own parcel from the store is so much better than home delivery requires further research. Yet the first results indicate a difference: when people go to a store to pick up an order, they make the trip a bit more thoughtfully than when they go shopping for fun. They choose the place and time of collection based more on their existing journeys, i.e. when commuting.
For returns, in particular, the physical store is important. “Returns must be put back into circulation as quickly as possible. The advantage of reverse click-and-collect is that fashion retailers can instantly put returned products back on the shelves. The return process must be at least as efficient as the delivery process, which is far from the case.
Nevertheless, it is still essential to have as few returns as possible. “Returns pollute twice. A lot can be done to ensure people don’t order the wrong items, from providing more information on personalisation to artificial and added reality. I know a Belgian omnichannel retailer that even phones customers when they put many different sizes in their cart, asking if they can offer help. But let’s be straightforward: the first step is to change consumer behaviour. All too often, people order with the full knowledge that they will be returning. It’s good to discourage that.”
Food retailers lead the way
Any examples that are leading the way? Those can mainly be found in food retail, Buldeo Rai says. These players often take their logistics into their own hands. For instance, Belgian meal box supplier Foodbag relies on its own Foodwheels, which enables the company to excel in clear communication with its customers. “When it’s presented in this way, consumers do understand the sustainability argument. Although, of course, the service still has to be on point. Consumers expect service and ecology to be in balance; one should not come at the expense of the other.”
The Dutch online supermarket Picnic is another example of a leader. All deliveries are made using electric vehicles, and the company also goes to great lengths to plan the most efficient routes possible – and communicates this very well with their consumers. Moreover, Picnic increasingly plays with freed-up transport capacity towards the end of the trips by also collecting returns.
Even relatively small measures such as well-loaded lorries and the reusable packaging with which RePack is experimenting can make a big difference. In other words, there are plenty of opportunities to make e-commerce more sustainable.
