Co-creating E-commerce Last-mile Logistics with Consumers: A Conceptual Framework and Future Research Agenda

Abstract

Increasingly, logistics industry offers innovative solutions that interact directly with end-consumers. Consumers are encouraged to participate in co-creating e-commerce last-mile logistics. Built on the synthesised insights from “consumer logistics” and the “value co-creation (VCC)” concept, this study proposes a conceptual framework of consumers’ involvement in last-mile logistics from a VCC perspective. This research study is based on a synthesised analysis of 52 peer-reviewed journal articles using Scopus of Elsevier and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of Thomson Reuters as search databases. It is found that consumers are empowered to influence specific changes in the service offerings, whereas logistics service providers accrue benefits by transferring part of the service obligations to consumers. Given the mutual benefits, the trend of VCC is expected to gain strong development in last-mile logistics. However, three major contingencies exist: (1) consumers’ resistance in adopting the innovation service concept of VCC; (2) the potential risk of exploitation and the associated concern about service fairness; and (3) a lack of a proper governance mechanism of the co-creation relationship. A conceptual framework along with four propositions is presented. Based on the conceptual insights, we further propose three emerging research fields that have great potential in generating interdisciplinary findings.