The last mile delivery in China

E-commerce as the fruit of internet and commerce has been growing with a rapid speed in China these years. It has not only contributed to economy, but also has shaped people’s way of living, especially with the service of home delivery. Consumers enjoy the various choices of products with reasonable prices and the convenience of receiving parcels with a single click on the mouse. Meanwhile, the problem of not-at-home and repeated delivery have caused trouble for both consumers and logistic providers. Therefore, it takes a lot of cooperation and innovations to build this convenience, which we call ‘last mile delivery’. This thesis is aiming at exploring the solutions to bottlenecks in last mile delivery in China under the background of growing popularity of e-commerce from the perspective of consumers. Since consumers’ needs are in the central of e-commerce and last mile delivery, thus to see how consumers adopt different modes in last mile delivery will give important direction and implication for logistics providers. In the thesis, we first established a literature review of e-commerce, last mile delivery and how western countries (The UK, the Netherlands and Germany), with which we formulated a theoretical framework of exanimating last mile delivery. Followed with the theoretical framework, we conducted a desktop research of China using empirical findings and a case study of Chengdu, a western first-tiered Chinese city with the primary data generated from a survey and three individual interviews, and secondary data from published reports and news. Lastly, we compare the findings western countries and China, and the findings of Chengdu to China in general to give answers to research question. Concluding it can be argued that, there is an increasing trend of using indirect modes in last mile delivery by consumers in China. These indirect last mile delivery modes have removed constrain of receiving parcel at home and have decreased the delivery failure in last mile delivery.