The impacts of logistics challenges on order management: the case of e-commerce firms in Nigeria

Purpose: The advent of e-commerce has placed new logistics responsibilities, fueled by increased customer expectation and needs for speedy delivery, on firms operating retail e-commerce business. This study aims to evaluate the impacts of logistics challenges to the SCM of the retail e-commerce firms in Nigeria on the level of consumers’ satisfaction by comparing the impacts of logistics challenges with that of non-logistics challenges on the level of consumer’s satisfaction in Nigeria.
Research Approach: This research used secondary data through a data mining process. The focus is customers’ online reviews about two leading retail e-commerce firms in Nigeria, which are www.jumia.com and www.konga.com. The data were gathered from their official websites, Facebook reviews pages and www.trustedcompany.com, a Malaysia based e-commerce open review website that enables consumers to rate e-commerce firms. As a result, 868 customer reviews were collected for this study across the two e-marketplaces. The data were analysed by the process of verbatim interpretation, classification into order cycle stages and statistical techniques.
Findings and Originality: The study identified fifteen logistics challenges that have impacts on consumers’ satisfaction in Nigeria. The categorisation of logistical challenges showed that 36.9% of complaints were made in order delivery, which is followed by complaints concerning order processing (32.6%), order picking and assembly (17.9%) and order returns (12.7%). Using a statistical evaluation, the study found that logistics challenges have greater negative impacts on the level of satisfaction experienced by online shoppers in Nigeria.
Research Impact: This study will fill up this academic lacuna in the body of knowledge with a particular focus on e-commerce in Nigeria. Besides, adoption of online data mining process based on customers ‘words of mouth’ conveyed in online shoppers’ reviews opens a unique approach to establishing relationships between logistics on the one hand and customers’ satisfaction and loyalty on the other hand.
Practical Impact: This study is significant in alerting online sellers to the logistics challenges that affect consumers’ satisfaction in Nigeria, and by extension, other developing economies. Also, this study places a further responsibility on the Nigerian government to channel more efforts and resources into building logistics infrastructure to aid a smooth delivery of commercial products across Nigeria since the study identified this as a critical factor within the order delivery framework.