Consumer Behaviour and Order Fulfilment in Online Retailing: A Systematic Review

• Author: Dung H. Nguyen,Wout E.H. Dullaert,Sander Leeuw
• Date: 01 April 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12129
• Published date: 01 April 2018

International Journal of Management Reviews, Vol. 20, 255–276 (2018)

DOI: 10.1111/ijmr.12129

Consumer Behaviour and Order

Fulfilment in Online Retailing:

A Systematic Review

Dung H. Nguyen,1Sander de Leeuw1,2 and Wout E.H. Dullaert1

1Department of Information, Logistics and Innovation, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, VU

University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and 2Department of

Management, Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham, NG1 4BU, UK

Corresponding author email: wout.dullaert@vu.nl

This paper provides a systematic review of consumer behaviour and order fulfilment

in online retailing. The objective of this review is threefold: first, to identify elements

of order-fulfilment operations that are relevant to online consumer behaviour (pur-

chase, repurchase, product return); second, to understand the relationship between

order-fulfilment performance and consumer behaviour; and third, to inspire future

research on developing consumer service strategies that takes account of these be-

havioural responses to order-fulfilment performance outcomes. The paper is based on

a systematic review of literature on online consumer behaviour and order-fulfilment

operations, mainly in the fields of marketing and operations, publishedin international

peer-reviewedjournals between 2000 and September 2015. This study indicates that the

current literature on online consumer behaviour focuses mainly on the use of market-

ing tools to improveconsumer service levels. Very little researchhas been conducted on

the use of consumer service instruments to steer consumer behaviour or, consequently,

to manage related order-fulfilment activities better. The study culminates in a frame-

work that encompasses elements of order-fulfilment operations and their relationship

to online consumer behaviour. This paper is the first comprehensive review of online

consumer behaviour that takesaspects of order-fulfilment operations into account from

both marketing and operations perspectives.

Introduction

The Internet and the development of mobile devices

have not only attracted a considerable number of

consumers who search for and buy products online,

but also created opportunities for retailers to increase

online sales. In 2014, more than 46% of European

shoppers used the Internet to buy products; moreover,

European online business-to-consumer (B2C) sales

grew by 14%, culminating at around €424 billion in

2014 (EcommerceEurope 2015). Organizations face

a variety of challenges in fulfilling online consumer

orders, including on-time and efficient transportation

and delivery, accurate inventory management and

efficient warehouse design and management (Agatz

et al. 2008; De Koster 2003; Fernie and McKinnon

2009; Hays et al. 2005; Maltz et al. 2004). Online or-

der fulfilment (also called e-fulfilment when referring

to the delivery of goods to consumers (Agatz et al.

2008)) is considered to be a critical part of Internet

sales (De Koster 2003; Lummus and Vokurka 2002).

The separation between retailers and their con-

sumers, in terms of both space and time, has made

online retailing different from traditional retailing

in various aspects, including consumer behaviour

and order fulfilment (Grewal et al. 2004). For

example, consumers have different needs and wants

with regard to product searching, purchasing or

consumer support when shopping on the Internet

compared with shopping in a physical retail store

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which

permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no

modifications or adaptations are made.

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256 D.H. Nguyen et al.

(Burke 2002; Monsuwe et al. 2004). Rose et al.

(2011) indicated four main differences between

online consumer experience and offline consumer

experience: personal contact; information provision;

time period for interactions; and brand presentation.

There are also differences between the two contexts

in terms of order-fulfilment aspects, including: prod-

uct assortment; inventory management; last-mile

delivery; and returns management (Agatz et al.

2008). Online channels, for example, tend to carry a

broader product assortment than physical stores do;

thus, they are better able to meet consumer demand

in the long end of the tail (Brynjolfsson et al. 2011).

In this paper, we focus specifically on the interre-

lationship between online consumer behaviour and

order-fulfilment operations. Consumer behaviour

in online environments has received significant

attention in the fields of marketing, information

systems, psychology and management (Cheung et al.

2005). In line with Hoyer and MacInnis (2010),

we define consumer behaviour as ‘the totality of

consumers’ decisions with respect to the acquisition,

consumption and disposition of goods, services,

time and ideas by human decision making units’.

In a review of the literature on online consumer

behaviour, Cheung et al. (2005) found that order

fulfilment is one of the key factors that has an

impact on consumer behaviour; specifically, it may

affect loyalty and repurchasing behaviour. As such,

fulfilment operations have been recognized as a vital

driver of the growth of the e-commerce sector (Maltz

et al. 2004). Moreover, recent industry reports on on-

line retailing indicate the key role of order-fulfilment

operations in relation to consumer experience and

expectation (comScore 2013; Deloitte 2014; DHL

2014; Drapers 2014; PwC 2014).

A significant number of studies in the fields of psy-

chology, marketing, information systems and opera-

tions management have identified various factors that

encourage consumers to shop online (Cheung et al.

2005; Darley et al. 2010; Monsuwe et al. 2004). Un-

fortunately, the literature on the relationship between

consumer behaviour and order-fulfilment operations

in online retailing is fragmented. Prior research either

has examined how separate order-fulfilment factors

(e.g. on-time delivery, stock-outs) affect consumer

behaviour, or has indicated an order-fulfilment factor

as a key driver of consumer purchase and repurchase

intentions (e.g. Bart et al. 2005; Otim and Grover

2006). From a managerial standpoint, it is important

to understand which aspects of order-fulfilment

operations significantly affect consumer behaviour

in order to implement successful e-commerce strate-

gies. To the best of our knowledge, no review paper

has addressed this issue. This literature review aims

to contribute to the fields of marketing and operations

by identifying and describing this research gap and

pointing out the need for future research.

We review literature using a systematic approach.

The systematic review approach offers a reproducible

and transparent process to minimize research bias

(Tranfield et al. 2003), which has contributed to its

growing use in management and organization studies

(Klang et al. 2014; Nijmeijer et al. 2014; Thorpe

et al. 2005; Xiao and Nicholson 2013). By using the

systematic review approach, we aim to (i) identify

order-fulfilment elements relevantto online consumer

behaviour from pre-purchase to post-purchase, (ii)

understand the relationship between order-fulfilment

performance and consumer behaviour, and (iii)

inspire future research on developing consumer

service strategies that take into account these be-

havioural responses to order-fulfilment performance

outcomes.

After introducing order fulfilment and consumer

behaviour in online environments in the next section,

we explain how we conducted the systematic review.

We then present descriptive results of the review

and discuss the main findings. We propose and

discuss an integrative framework to guide further

research. Lastly, we conclude with a summary of the

contribution, future directions and limitations of this

review.

Consumer behaviour and order

fulfilment from Brick to Click

Online consumer behaviour involves the stages of

a consumer decision-making process, including

problem recognition (i.e. identifying a consumption

problem), information search (i.e. searching for infor-

mation to solve the problem), evaluation (i.e. judging

the likelihood of an outcome or event), choice (i.e.

deciding which products to purchase) and outcomes

(i.e. experiencing satisfaction/dissatisfaction with

the product, or disposing of the product) (Darley

et al. 2010). Consumers tend to behave heteroge-

neously in an online buying environment. Rohm and

Swaminathan (2004) found four types of online gro-

cery shoppers with differing shopping behaviours:

convenience shoppers; varietyseekers; balanced buy-

ers; and store-oriented shoppers. For example, while

convenience shoppers aim for time savings in an

C2016 The Authors. International Journal of Management Reviews published by British Academy of Management and John

Wiley & Sons Ltd.