Exploring Digital Behaviour Interventions to encourage Sustainable Consumer Delivery Choices
Michael Thelen, Veronika Hornung-Prähauser, David Leistner (2024): Exploring Digital Behaviour Interventions to encourage Sustainable Consumer Delivery Choices In: 36th NOFOMA Conference “Logistics and Supply Chain Management in a Risky and Uncertain World”, 13-14 June 2024.
Currently, 74% of EU internet users aged 16-74 ordered goods and services online (Eurostat, 2021). Same-day and instant deliveries, which have the highest CO2 emissions of all delivery options, are the fastest-growing services in last-mile delivery (World Economic Forum, 2020). Amidst this, digital behaviour change interventions on e-commerce sites that convincingly frame, encourage, and incentivise the use of green delivery and local pick-up of ordered goods are necessitated. The aim of the research is to investigate the scientific landscape for studies that deal with theoretical approaches and methods for digital interventions in e-commerce shopping. Furthermore, it will be investigated whether the results of these studies are reflected in practice.
The method is twofold. First, a limited meta-analysis of studies concerning the use of digital behaviour change interventions for sustainable consumer delivery choices during the ordering and delivery process of the customer purchase journey was carried out. These included ten research studies during the period 2018-2024 identified on the Scopus, Web of Science and Google Scholar databases via an iteratively updated keyword search. The retrieved studies respectively their examined behaviour change techniques were then classified according to the Behaviour Change Taxonomy by Michie et al. (2013). Secondly, an e-commerce website analysis of the top 65 e-commerce sites by net revenue in 2022 (EHI Retail Institute, 2023) was conducted to identify which, if any, of the theoretically identified behaviour change interventions that promote sustainable delivery and pick-up options were utilised.
Among the ten studies analysed, we found eleven main theoretical and conceptual approaches (predominantly sustainable consumer behaviour and nudging), four methods (predominantly using online surveys with a mock web page/shopping basket and stated preference surveys), and six types of behaviour interventions (predominantly information about social and environmental consequences and restructuring the physical environment). Among the 65 websites analysed, three percent currently employed one or more behavioural interventions (one pet shop and one drug store). Interestingly, the lack of systematic and overarching analysis on this topic presents the need for a new research agenda that unifies and defines courses of action based on connecting these different studies.
