Economic Research on the “Last Mile” in E-commerce Logistics System on the Basis of Time and Space

Abstract

Being the unique stage to face client, the "Last Mile" in e-commerce logistics is the bottleneck of ecommerce development owing to the problems of high cost and low service quality. The author attempts to analyze the delivery patterns of "Last Mile" on the basis of economics and find the appropriate model of delivery for the "Last Mile". The author uses PRN analysis framework to describe the product, resource and network economy of the "Last Mile" based on the deep analysis of various patterns of delivery of the "Last Mile", the emphasis of this paper is analyzing the effect of three new patterns of delivery, which focuses on the economies of scale, economies of scope together with saving the cost of time and space. It puts forward to build a comprehensive model of delivery consisted of socialized third-party logistics, intelligent pickup cabinets, express-collections offered by convenience stores, supplemented by self-built branches, and door-todoor delivery service by couriers, so that not only the allocation of resources in domestic e-commerce logistics should be optimized, the cost also needs to be lowered as much as possible. Keywords-the "Last Mile"; delivery pattern; space and time; economies of scale; economies of scope I.

Innovative solutions to increase last-mile delivery efficiency in B2C e-commerce: a literature review

“…Considering instead conceptual models or frameworks, many authors list and categorise different innovative last-mile delivery options based on specific dimensions. For instance, Ye (2015) defines and studies some delivery “patterns” – e.g. door-to-door delivery by couriers, socialised third-party logistics, intelligent pick-up cabinets – developing a framework based on four variables, i.e.…”

Multi-Criteria Evaluation of E-Shop Methods of Delivery From the Customer's Perspective

“…[26]. According to Ye, C.M., last mile logistics can be analysed from time and space perspectives [36]. Otter, C., Watzl, C., Schwarz, D. and Priess, P. in their paper [27], present e-commerce customer expectations in alternative delivery time frames and consider the impacts in the last mile of attended home delivery, reception boxes and collection-and-delivery points.…”

Last Mile Delivery for e-Commerce: Challenges, Benefits, and Future

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