Consumer preferences for economic, environmental, and social sustainability in last-mile delivery: a factorial survey experiment in Chile

This study examines how urban online shoppers in Chile evaluate the economic, environmental, and social attributes of last-mile delivery and how heterogeneity in age and sustainability-oriented attitudes toward last-mile delivery shapes these preferences. Using a factorial survey experiment, we randomly varied delivery fees, delivery speed, delivery location, delivery time windows, workers’ social benefits, and air-pollutant emissions across hypothetical delivery strategies, enabling the causal estimation of each attribute’s effect on purchase intentions. Multilevel regression models show that participants simultaneously favor delivery options that are inexpensive, fast, and home-based while also preferring low-emission and socially responsible delivery practices—a combination of attributes that is costly for retailers and logistics providers to offer simultaneously. Preferences, however, are not uniform. Moderation analyses indicate that age and sustainability attitudes shape preferences for selected attributes, particularly within the economic and environmental dimensions. Younger adults place greater weight on delivery speed, whereas older adults penalize high-emission delivery strategies more severely. Consumers with stronger sustainability attitudes are more willing to accept higher delivery fees or less convenient delivery locations when these reduce environmental harm, and they exhibit heightened aversion to environmentally harmful delivery options. Together, these findings suggest that consumer heterogeneity can partially alleviate these constraints by shifting the relative importance of delivery attributes across consumer segments. We discuss implications for consumer-centric logistics and argue that differentiated service menus may help retailers and carriers tailor fulfillment strategies to distinct customer segments.