A behavioural study on consumer adoption of self-collection service for e-commerce freight delivery (initial adoption)

• Main Author: Liow, Xing Zi
• Other Authors: Teo Chee Chong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Maritime studies::Maritime management and business
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75693
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In this study, we examine consumers’ behaviour in the initial adoption stage of Automated Parcel Lockers (APLs) in last-mile delivery. In the initial adoption of technologies, the consumer might have heard of the technology but have never used it before. For logistics service providers, implementing self-collection technology in their last-mile delivery strategy brings about benefits for logistics players. However, they may not have a good grasp on how consumers perceive the self-collection experience. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that motivate consumers’ initial adoption of Self-Service Technologies (SSTs) such as APLs. To bridge the gap in literature, the Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory (Rogers, 1995) is employed in this study to assess consumers’ level of acceptance of APLs. Interviews conducted with industry players and a pilot survey on consumers of self-checkout counters in supermarkets shed light on consumers’ behaviour when adopting Self-Service Technologies (SSTs) in other industries. Benefits and limitations of APLs were discussed that led to a quantitative survey to find the correlation between the DOI theory characteristics and consumer intention to begin adopting APLs. The attributes compatibility, relative advantage and observability were found to have positive influence on consumer’s intention toward using APLs. These insights contributed to research in the last-mile segment and had managerial implications that aid operators to divert their resources effectively to increase adoption rates. One example is collaboration among government agencies and logistics players. Further research can be done to gain more perspectives that may increase the rate of adoption of APLs.