Interactive effects of reminder methods and E-shopping types on consumers' timely parcel pickup intention in self-collection service contexts

Self-collection services have emerged as a key solution to urban last-mile delivery challenges, handling massive parcels amid the surge in e-commerce. However, persistent pickup delays often result in issues like parcel loss and station overcrowding, increasing repeat delivery costs and delaying e-commerce merchants' payment collection, thus urging logistics service providers to optimize reminder strategies. Based on media richness theory and cognitive fit theory, this study explores how reminder methods (robotic calls vs. text messages) and e-shopping types (goal-oriented vs. experiential) influence consumers’ timely pickup intention across different reminder contexts. Findings from three scenario-based experiments reveal that in experiential e-shopping scenarios, text message reminders outperform robotic calls in boosting timely pickup intention. In goal-oriented scenarios, reminder methods show no significant direct effect, but robotic calls more strongly enhance intention by promoting perceived information usefulness. Furthermore, compared with initial reminders, follow-up reminders more effectively improve perceived information usefulness and timely pickup intention regardless of the combination of reminder method and e-shopping type. Consumers with habitual pickup delay exhibit a stronger positive relationship between perceived information usefulness and pickup intention. The conclusions provide guidance for logistics providers to rationally adopt appropriate reminder methods and design personalized, stratified reminder systems to enhance last-mile efficiency.