Enlarge image

Come in:

Customers consider stationary retail to be the more sustainable shopping experience, but science sees it differently

Photo:

Mascot / Getty Images

Maybe it's the constant stream of parcel delivery trucks, maybe it's the mountains of packaging boxes. In any case, online shopping is viewed by consumers as an environmental sin compared to supposedly more sustainable shopping in stores. But that is a mistake, says Patrick Klein from Saarland University, who studied the phenomenon together with Professor Bastian Popp. “The majority of scientific studies show that online retail is often better than brick-and-mortar retail from an ecological perspective.”

Because when customers get into the car to shop and possibly visit stores that are far away, the carbon footprint of their purchase is usually worse than if it were delivered by a parcel service that optimizes the route. Additionally, many smaller stores typically use more energy than a large distribution center.

more on the subject

  • Against the returns madness By Gianfranco Walsh and Michael Möhring

  • Case Study:Is sustainable fashion suitable as a business model?By Dirk Funck and Heike Schinnenburg

  • Shipping costs: Returns cost online retailers an average of five to ten euros

  • Retail:Why it's worth stocking sustainable productsBy Julia Großmann-krieger

With four online surveys on non-food retail, they demonstrated the distorted perception of German consumers. The majority still consider stationary shops to be more environmentally friendly than online shops, in terms of CO₂ emissions and resource consumption as well as when dealing with waste. It is therefore important for online retailers and logistics service providers to “communicate their ecological benefits transparently and credibly in order to improve their perceived image,” explains Klein. Brick-and-mortar retailers, on the other hand, have to be careful not to lose their supposed advantage in view of the ecological efforts of online retail.

© HBm 2024

Source:

Patrick Klein, Bastian Popp: “A comparison of the environmental sustainability of brick-and-mortar retailing and online retailing: Contrasting academic research and consumer perceptions”, Business and Society Review, December 2023