Sustainable management for fresh food e-commerce logistics services

Abstract

This article determines the quality factors which improve the satisfaction of logistics services, and the specific evaluation items that customers value. Moreover, this study verifies the moderating effect of consumers on the perceived importance of last-mile logistics services, and its impact on logistics service satisfaction. Through a literature review, the conceptual model is determined, and measurement scales are developed. Furthermore, we collect data through online surveys and employ structural equation modeling, hierarchical regression analysis, and importance–performance analysis methods in order to analyze the collected data, and to test the research hypotheses. The findings of this study are as follows. First, the qualities of personal contact, timeliness, and empathy in the fresh food e-commerce logistics service quality evaluation system have a significant positive impact on the fresh food e-commerce logistics service consumer satisfaction, but the delivery quality and information quality are not significant. Second, consumers’ perceived importance of last-mile logistics services has a positive and significant impact on the consumer satisfaction of fresh food e-commerce logistics services. Moreover, as a moderating variable, its moderating effect has limitations: it only affects the relationship between information quality, timeliness quality, empathy quality, and consumer satisfaction. Finally, in the three evaluation dimensions of information quality, timeliness quality, and empathy quality, specific items that need to be further improved are identified. This study enriches and supplements the empirical research in the field of fresh food e-commerce logistics, and provides academic literature with a reference value for fresh food e-commerce logistics enterprises.