The Role of Logistics in E-commerce Transactions: An Exploratory Study of Customer Feedback and Risk
AbstractLogistics plays an important role in e-commerce; while most part of the transactions happen electronically, physical products need to be shipped to customers using conventional transport means. We report in this paper an exploratory study to understand how customers view logistics performance in deciding performance of sellers in e-commerce. Since it has been observed that risk plays a stronger role in online transactions compared to offline transactions, we study how the importance of logistics performance is influenced by risk characteristics of products sold through e-commerce websites. Our data for analysis have been derived from customer feedback available in eBay. Based on Chi square tests and the Marascuilo procedure, we find that the importance of logistics services increases as risk characteristics of products decreases from high to low.KeywordsLogisticsE-commerceProduct risk