Exploring E-Commerce Marketing Logistics for Customer Satisfaction: A Configurational Approach Using fsQCA

Abstract

The rapid growth of e-commerce in India has revolutionized the retail landscape, offering customers unprecedented convenience, choice, and on-click accessibility. However, this growth has also introduced significant challenges for businesses, particularly in meeting customer expectations regarding marketing logistics (ML) dimensions. This study aims to explore the influence of ML dimensions — product accessibility, delivery charge, ecological packaging, reverse logistics, and responsive mechanisms — on customer satisfaction (CS) among Indian e-shoppers, by adopting the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework and leveraging fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA). This research provides a novel perspective on the contingent and interactional effects of ML dimensions on CS. The findings reveal six unique configurations of ML dimensions that maximize CS, underscoring the configurational nature of causality in the e-commerce domain. This study contributes to theory by deepening insights into the interplay between logistics factors and customer behavior. It also offers practical implications for e-commerce firms, equipping them with actionable strategies to enhance CS through sustainable logistics approaches. The study highlights the importance of adopting robust approaches to address the dynamic needs of digitally driven markets like India.