Clustering end consumers’ decisions in receiving e-purchases

Nowadays, e-commerce is gaining popularity worldwide. End consumers are shifting from in-store shopping to online due to the numerous advantages. The e-deliveries are associated with smaller and more frequent deliveries, failed and geographically sprawled ones. It causes the increase of the number of vehicles as well as of the kilometres travelled, and then the raise of the negative impacts, e.g., pollutant emissions, congestions. Therefore, new delivery channels have been developed to optimise the delivery system and new procedures are necessary for their assessment. A key role in these assessment procedures is played by the analysis of how each of the new delivery omni-channels are really chosen by end consumers. Then, this study points out end consumers’ choices through a structured survey. The data collected are then analysed through a clustering approach. The aim is to find out the decision processes by comparing various delivery channels based on service attributes (e.g., delivery time and price, the place where the item is received), respondents’ characteristics and choices made. The results show that such an analysis could be a powerful tool for forecasting end consumers’ decisions, which should be taken into consideration when designing new city logistics scenarios.