Organizational Characteristics Affecting the Adoption of Last-Mile Delivery: A Case Study of Thai Industries

The last-mile delivery is an attractive transportation service for many organizations since a main operation to deliver goods from retailers to customers' selected locations. Even though the literatures have reviewed on the suitability of last-mile delivery in different organizational structures, only few have identified the common factors of organizational characteristics. This paper aimed to study the common organizational characteristics for last-mile delivery adoption in different modes. A total of 300 questionnaires were collected from different firms in the central of Thailand. Based on the descriptive analysis, the important results showed that last-mile delivery was widely used in medium-size organizations which had semi-automation level and mixed distribution channel. Attended home delivery, unattended home delivery, same-day delivery and on-demand delivery were the discussed last-mile delivery types. Attended home delivery was the most popular last-mile delivery in Thailand. On-demand delivery was an innovative type of last-mile delivery; however, it was still widely used in a specific industry which was food industry. Based on significant tests, the important factors affecting the choices of last-mile delivery were type of industry, type of product, automation level and distribution channel while size of organization shows no influence on the selection of last-mile delivery types.