Estimating e-Consumers' Attitude towards Parcel Locker Usage

The widespread diffusion of the online channel in the retail marketplace is impacting modern society considerably in recent years. Given the growing demand, Business to Consumer (B2C) e-commerce entails a much higher complexity of the delivery process due to significant fragmentation of parcel shipments in the last mile, especially in urban areas, where traffic and congestion problems are arising together with environmental issues. All these aspects rise interest not only from companies - which strive to maintain a high target service level for their customers - but also for public administrations, that aim to foresee the implications of this phenomenon. In this context, the purpose of the study is to investigate the potential of an alternative solution to the traditional home delivery, namely the self-collection delivery service through automated parcel lockers. The research study is based on data gathered from an online survey submitted to a sample of residents living in the metropolitan city of Turin, Italy. The potential of parcel lockers to capture the actual demand will be assessed to determine the feasibility of the delivery solution under consideration.