The relevance of traditional postal services in a diversifying last-mile delivery landscape: The role of human to human (H2H) interactions

Last-mile delivery research increasingly focuses on business-to-consumer (B2C) automation to satisfy consumers with an ‘I want it now’ mentality, reduce firms’ carbon footprints, and improve cost efficiency. Much less attention has been given to the possibility that there might be differences across consumer segments in their preferences for technology‑enabled or more traditional, human-mediated delivery modes. Building on random utility theory, we developed a hybrid choice model with a latent class kernel and applied it to stated choice data on delivery service preferences collected from 1,007 customers across metropolitan and regional areas of Australia. Our results reveal two latent classes of consumers with distinctly different preferences. The largest group, which we label techies, value speed and low cost last-mile delivery and prefer traditional postal services, followed by aerial drones and parcel lockers, with the effect moderated by parcel value and the availability of a safe place for unattended delivery. The second group, relational, trusting people, place a stronger emphasis on trust and interpersonal aspects of service and substantially prefer traditional postal services (assuming a safe place for delivery is available) and lockers while showing a strong dislike of aerial drones. To interpret these patterns, we draw on social exchange theory and the human-to-human (H2H) relationship model to explain how relational considerations may influence delivery mode preferences. H2H interactions matter for a subset of consumers. Importantly, our broader findings highlight the continued relevance of traditional postal services in a diversifying delivery landscape. Although no direct spatial effect emerges in the class allocation model, our results suggest that residential location (metropolitan versus regional) has a structural effect by influencing consumers’ underlying latent attitudes.