6° Dauin Lunch Seminar - Sustainable e-commerce: the land of blood and honey

Online shopping is increasing the flows that transit into the urban areas. While the business to consumer segment of e-commerce represents around 30% of the e-commerce turnover, it generates the 56% of all e-commerce shipments.

It is clear, therefore, that E-commerce introduces challenges for the urban logistics, which represent the land of blood and honey, characterized by positive (e.g., support to the economic growth of urban centers, product discoverability) and negative (e.g., big e-commerce giant vs. small companies) sides.

The question is: how to make urban logistics a competitive factor for the entire complex-system “City”?

A partial answer comes from the City Logistics, which is more focused on technological aspects (e.g., vehicles), disregarding a broad vision that considers the sustainability of the system from the economic operational/organizational, social and environmental standpoints.

To overcome this lack, it emerges the need for conjugating quantitative with qualitative approaches, and the skills and backgrounds of the different actors involved in the system.
In this direction, the technology scouting must be supported by behavioral and economic analyses and simulation-optimization techniques aiming at understanding the system.

Youtube streaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfoRje9v9xo