Influence of neighborhood characteristics on e-commerce deliveries: The case of Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Abstract

Business-to-consumer shoppers in e-commerce increased significantly in recent years, along with the number of urban freight trips derived from deliveries. Therefore, understanding the factors that influence e-commerce demand is essential to providing practical solutions to the problems that arise from deliveries. This study assesses the relationship between neighborhood characteristics and the number of urban e-commerce deliveries using negative binomial regression models applied to Belo Horizonte, Brazil data. The number of e-commerce deliveries between 2019 and 2021 was modeled considering the number of retail shops, sociodemographic data, and neighborhood area. The results show that income, number of retail shops, and neighborhood land area positively influence e-commerce deliveries, while household size negatively impacts the number of deliveries. The elasticity values and t-test indicate that the impact of different characteristics changed in 2020, remaining similar between 2019 and 2021. Income was the most impactful variable in the number of deliveries in 2020. The neighborhood characteristics bring knowledge for developing more effective business models for e-commerce delivery services.