Fulfilment as Logistics Support for E-Tailers: An Empirical Studies

Undoubtedly, one of the key areas of e-commerce is logistics. It is not only about the delivery of shipments, but also a number of other processes related to customer service and warehousing. The e-commerce logistics is driven by such trends as development of logistic co-operation models, different delivery methods and cross-border e-commerce. Fulfilment is one of the logistic co-operation model examples. Still, only a small proportion of online retailers use their services. The paper aims to characterise fulfilment services and indicate the benefits which e-tailers achieve from applying fulfilment services as well as the reasons why other companies do not use them. It is also important to determine the impact of these services on the online sellers’ performance. For the purposes of the research, 300 interviews were conducted with e-tailers. The studies show that only some part of the online shops use fulfilment services but those who use such service are satisfied and most often perceive saving time and increasing logistics service level as the greatest benefit. Moreover, such companies perform better. The firms which do not use the fulfilment services point out the willingness to keep everything under control as the main reason.