How COVID-19 has changed the online consumer behaviours. Implications for sustainable last mile deliveries in the Italian e-commerce market

The pandemic has affected all spheres of our lives, from collective behaviours to individual routines, producing impacts in different areas and at different scales. One of the spheres most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly e-commerce. During the health emergency, the governments of many countries imposed several restrictions on purchasing a large number of products in traditional shops. In this difficult situation, many consumers turned to e-commerce for their (online) purchasing. Several research has been conducted on how COVID-19 has changed the online consumer behaviours as the number of e-customers has increased exponentially making the last mile deliveries in urban context a critical issue. The literature offers a number of investigations carried out on this topic in several countries. In Italy, studies have been conducted mainly for analysing the impacts of COVID-19 on business sectors with a lack of empirical studies analysing changing in online purchasing behaviour and the related implications for last mile deliveries in the Italian e-commerce market. The main objective of this paper is to present the preliminary results of an ongoing questionnaire survey investigating how the online consumer’s behaviours changed during the pandemic and the related effects on the type of products purchased, the purchasing frequency and the method of delivery/return on the Italian e-commerce market. The findings indicate that, while COVID-19 has influenced online consumer behaviour by fostering the growth of e-commerce and the development of new ways of delivery, it is still unclear how to make these changes sustainable, in terms of business processes, more green logistics services and environmental consumer awareness. The paper offers a number of managerial and research implications.