How are consumers using collection points? Evidence from Brussels

Abstract

Environmental assessments of e-commerce often focus on the last mile. Collection points are considered more beneficial than home delivery but this largely depends on how consumers’ collection trips are organised. Because this information is lacking, our objective is to find out how consumers make use of and travel to collection points by means of a street intercept surveys in the Brussels-Capital Region. Findings show that the majority of consumers use collection points after an unsuccessful delivery at home. Most consumers travel less than fifteen minutes by car, chaining several activities to the collection trip.