Benchmarking sustainable E‐commerce enterprises based on evolving customer expectations amidst COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic has seriously impacted the performance of all types of businesses. It has given a tremendous structural boost to e‐commerce enterprises by forcing customers to online shopping over visiting physical stores. Moreover, customer expectations of the digital and operational capabilities of e‐commerce firms are also increasing globally. Thus, it has become crucial for an e‐commerce enterprise to reassess and realign its business practices to meet evolving customer needs and remain sustainable. This paper presents a comprehensive performance evaluation framework for e‐commerce enterprises based on evolving customer expectations due to the COVID‐19 pandemic. The framework comprises seven primary criteria, which are further divided into 25 sub‐criteria, including two sustainability factors, namely, environmental sustainability and carbon emissions. The evaluation approach is then practically demonstrated by analyzing the case of three Indian e‐commerce firms. The results are obtained using a multi‐criteria decision‐making (MCDM) method, namely, Fuzzy VIKOR, to capture the fuzziness of the inherent decision‐making problem. Further, numerical analysis is conducted to evaluate and rank various e‐commerce enterprises based on customer expectations and satisfaction benchmarks. The findings explain the most important criteria and sub‐criteria for e‐commerce businesses to ensure customer expectations along with their economic and environmental sustainability.

Sustainable Evaluation of E-Commerce Companies in Vietnam: A Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Framework Based on MCDM

“…Table 1 provides an overview of MCDM methods used in previous studies related to the development of the e-commerce industry. Many authors have used MCDM and related techniques to address e-commerce challenges, using methods such as the best holistically adaptable attribute ranking technique (BHARAT) [12][13][14]; combined compromise solution (COCOSO) [14]; Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) [15,16]; weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) [17,18]; evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) [14,19]; analytic hierarchy process (AHP) [20,21]; technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (FTOPSIS) [18,[20][21][22][23][24]; and other MCDM [13,14,18,21,23,24]. Researchers have developed and applied a combination of different MCDM methods.…”

The Important Role of E-Commerce in Forming Community Financial Literacy

“…Followed by research about the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic which has seriously affected the performance of various types of businesses (Pratap et al, 2022). The pandemic has provided a major structural boost to e-commerce companies by forcing customers to switch to shopping online instead of visiting physical stores.…”

The nexus between electronic commerce and environmental pollution: The roles of energy efficiency and resource consumption

“…Empirical evidence demonstrates that the decreased energy consumption in passenger transport outweighs the increased energy use in the freight transport associated with e‐commerce. As a result, there is a net gain in energy saving (Elheddad et al, 2021; Pålsson et al, 2017; Tehrani et al, 2009), particularly during the COVID‐19 pandemic (Pratap et al, 2023). Shao et al (2016) suggest that e‐commerce can potentially alleviate traffic congestion because it optimizes the goods delivery system by shifting the entire traffic demand curve inwards.…”

“…Matthews et al (2002) and Williams and Tagami (2002) argue that books delivered in e‐commerce system can use additional packaging and consume considerably more energy than those sold in conventional stores. Others reckon how consumers choose their e‐commerce might have an impact on the environment (Pratap et al, 2023; Rotem‐Mindali & Salomon, 2007; Van Loon et al, 2015). Morganti et al (2014) emphasize that deliveries to the end consumers in the context of e‐business can reduce the risk of missed deliveries but increase new types of business‐to‐business (B2B) freight trips.…”