Value of High-Quality Logistics: Evidence from a Clash Between SF Express and Alibaba
High-quality logistics meaningfully drives online sales, and its value is greatest for star products, expensive items, and less-discounted goods where customers most need reliable delivery.
Summary
Cui, Li and Li quantify the value of delivery quality to online sales using a natural experiment: Alibaba's unexpected 42-hour removal of top logistics provider SF Express as a shipping option. They find sales dropped 14.56% during the disruption and sales concentration shifted toward long-tail products, with the biggest impact on star products, expensive items and less-discounted goods, where customers rely most on trustworthy delivery. Retail
Editor's opinion
Clean causal design, but too narrow/operational (e-commerce logistics) to be a strategy-level insight.
Key concepts
Delivery quality · Customer experience · Natural experiment