BESTUFS I Results Best Practice Year2 PDF

DRAFT FOR DELIVERABLE D2.
Best Practice Handbook Year 2 (2001)

E-Commerce and urban freight distribution (home shopping)
Public
CONTRACT N° : 1999-TN.10003
ACRONYM :
TITLE : Best Urban Freight Solutions
PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR: PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG (DE)

PROJECT PARTNERS : Advanced Railway Research Centre (UK)
NEA Transport Research and Training (NL)
RAPP AG Ingenieure und Planer (CH)
MEMBERS: CSST Centro Studi sui Sistemi di Transporto (IT)
STRATEC (BE)
PROINCA (ES)
AUTh - Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (GR)
ECONSULT Betriebsberatungsgesellschaft m.b.H. (AU)
TFK – Transport Research Institute (SE)
GART – Groupement d. Autorités Responsables de Transport
(FR)
POLIS
CFC – Car Free Cities
MAIN AUTHORS: Dieter Egger, Claudia Glücker, Martin Ruesch (RAPP AG)
PROJECT START DATE : Jan 2000 DURATION : 48 months
DATE OF ISSUE OF THIS REPORT : December 2001

Project funded by the European Community
under the ‘Competitive and Sustainable
Growth’ Programme (1998-2002)
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 I
Table of contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FIGURES III
TABLES IV
1 Introduction 1
1.1 The BESTUFS Thematic Network and need for action 1
1.2 Relation to previous and running activities concerning urban freight 3
1.2.1 European level 3
1.2.2 National level 5
1.3 Themes to be treated within BESTUFS 6
1.4 Aims, contents and use of the handbook 8
2 Best Practices 10
3 E-Commerce and urban freight distribution (home shopping) 13

3.1 Introduction 13
3.2 Situation at country level 18
3.3 Regarded case studies (project-level) 24
Example 3.1: RelayStar (Benelux and UK) 28
Example 3.2: PickPoint AG (Germany, Austria, UK) 31
Example 3.3: Internet House (Berlin) 34
Example 3.4: Tower24 (Dortmund) 35
Example 3.5: Magasin de Quartier (Ile-de-France, Paris) 37
Example 3.6: Caddy-Home (Brussels and surroundings) 39
Example 3.7: LeShop (Switzerland) 41
Example 3.8: MIGROS-Shop (Switzerland) 46
Example 3.9: PAD Nanterre (Nanterre) 48
Example 3.10: ServiceLog (Switzerland) 50
3.4 The logistics of online-shopping solutions 54
3.5 Possible effects on urban freight and passenger transport 61
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 II
Table of contents
3.6 Conclusions and recommendations 69

3.6.1 Conclusions 69
3.6.2 Recommendations 71
REFERENCES AND CONTACT PERSONS
ANNEX
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 III
Table of contents
FIGURES
Figure 1: Sources of Best practices and thematic structuring 11

Figure 2: Percentage of online-shoppers buying different goods [Ernst & Young; 2000] 16
Figure 3: Growing importance of B2B e-commerce 19
Figure 4: Growing importance of B2C e-commerce 19
Figure 5: Turnover generated by online shopping in percent of total retail sales in 1999 [BCG;
2000] 21
Figure 6: Internet shoppers as a percentage of working age population [OECD; 2001] 21
Figure 7: Different categories among the collected projects 24
Figure 8: Number of projects relying on different last-mile solutions 25
Figure 9: Choice of pick-up point [www.relaystar.com] 29
Figure 10: Information Flow Overview [Dujardin; 2001] 30
Figure 11: Tower24: delivery, storage and picking-up [IML; 2001] 35
Figure 12: Caddy-Home home delivery service [www.caddyhome.be] 39
Figure 13: Shipping boxes (“Dispoboxes”) [www.leshop.ch] 42
Figure 14: LeShop products are delivered by the postman [www.leshop.ch] 43
Figure 15: Picking process using conveyor belts in LeShop’s dedicated warehouse
[www.leshop.ch] 44
Figure 16: Electric bike delivery by the “Service Porteur” 47
Figure 17: The ServiceLog process [Swiss Post; 2001] 53
Figure 18: Store-based picking model [Browne; 2001] 54
Figure 19: Dedicated picking centre model [Browne; 2001] 55
Figure 20: When people want their products delivered [Hultkranz / Lumsden; 2000] 57
Figure 21: Impacts of business-to-business E-commerce on transport volumes 62
Figure 22: Interdependence of B2C e-commerce and logistics 68
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 IV
Table of contents
TABLES
Table 1: Overview on all online-shop examples collected 27

Table 2: Different logistic solution to online-shopping models and their impact on transport
volumes 65
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 1
Introduction
1 Introduction
1.1 The BESTUFS Thematic Network and need for action

Background and More than 80% of today’s road freight trips in European conurbations are on
need for Action
distances below 80 km and can be defined as urban or urban-regional
transport.
The delivery and collection of goods within urban and metropolitan areas,
especially in the core areas of cities with old and established centres has a
major impact on the local community concerning the economic power,
quality of life, accessibility and attractiveness of a city. This means that an
efficient and environmental friendly urban transport system is essential for
the economic health and the quality of life of cities.
It is therefore important to assess the opportunities and chances of technical
(vehicle technology, telematics applications, etc.), organisational (co-
operation, etc.), operational (route planning, etc.) and political (time
windows, weight limits, etc.) approaches for improving the urban transport
systems.
Starting up the The EC established the thematic network (TN) on BEST Urban Freight
BESTUFS Thematic
Network
Solutions (BESTUFS) in January 2000 with a duration of 4 years. BESTUFS
is aiming at identifying and disseminating best practices with respect to
urban freight transport. The concept of a thematic network is thereby
focusing on the co-operation of experts and projects with already existing or
just emerging experiences and expertises and on the collection and raw
analysis of results of national and European projects - rather than starting
new research activities.
th
The thematic network BESTUFS contributes within the 5 Framework
Programme to the Key Action „Sustainable Mobility and Intermodality“ (part
of theme 3 “Competitive and Sustainable Growth”) focusing on “Modal and
Intermodal Transport Management Systems” (task 2.3), especially transport
and mobility services (Task 2.3.2) concerning urban goods transport.
Main objectives of • BESTUFS is establishing and maintaining an open European network
BESTUFS
between urban freight transport experts, user groups/associations,
ongoing projects, interested cities, the relevant European Commission
Directorates and representatives of national, regional and local transport
administrations in order to identify, describe and disseminate best
practices, success criteria and bottlenecks with respect to the
movement of goods in urban areas. The main objectives of BESTUFS
are:
Introduction
• To create a permanent and dynamic concentration activity during the

period of the 5th Framework Programme;
• To identify and structure the various themes which build the urban
freight solutions (UFS) domain and which have relations and influence
to it;
• To present projects and best practices;
• To support the clustering of projects on European level and to integrate
projects and clusters into the network;
• To collect, compare and summarise available experiences and results
of projects and initiatives in the UFS domain mainly for Europe but also
- if easily obtainable - for the USA and other countries;
• To identify and describe best practices and success criteria within the
UFS domain;
• To disseminate experiences, project relations, best practices and
success criteria to a broad public of interested actors, thereby aiming at
the transferability of solutions;
• To establish links and co-operations with relevant other thematic
networks (treating different themes) on European level in order to share
and integrate the results (regarding overlapping themes) and to avoid
duplication of work;
• To establish links and co-operations with national thematic networks
(treating the UFS domain) in order to share and integrate results;
• To support the co-operation between actors in the UFS domain by
providing information and by providing contacts.
BESTUFS Glossary The BESTUFS Glossary focuses mainly on urban freight transport and tries
to create a common understanding of the used terms within all BESTUFS
deliverables, workshops and discussions. It is available at www.bestufs.net.
More information Web: www.bestufs.net

about the BESTUFS Post address: BESTUFS
project
Administration centre
P.O. Box 1969
2280 DZ Rijswijk
The Netherlands
E-mail: bestufs@nea.nl
Telephone No.: +31 70 3988 393
Fax No.: +31 70 3988 426
Introduction
1.2 Relation to previous and running activities concerning urban

freight
1.2.1 European level

THERMIE Within the European Community programs THERMIE (1990-1994) and
JOULE-THERMIE (1995-1998) the rational use of energy in transport has
been looked at. Concerning urban goods transport various measures and
technologies have been investigated and assessed. For more information
see www.cordis.lu under THERMIE and transport.
COST Actions On European level the following COST Actions concerning freight transport
and logistics are relevant:
• COST 310/316: Freight Transport Logistics (1989-1992)
• COST 321: Urban Goods Transport (1994 –1998)
• COST 339: Small Containers (1998 – 2001)
Especially COST 321 provided important base material, information and
results as an input for the further activities in the BESTUFS TN [COST 321;
1998]. On one hand COST 321 reviewed current and potential measures
promoted by public authorities and private parties, in the logistical,
technical, behavioural, infrastructural and administrative field. An extensive
survey was conducted, leading to a policy-relevant classification of
observed and planned measures which were qualitatively assessed relating
to their potential contribution to the improvement of the quality of urban
goods transport. On the other hand COST 321 provided quantitative results
on the impact of measures using simulation and modelling tools and also
estimated effects in projects and case studies. Also some key figures
relating to urban goods transport have been identified and provided for
several cities.
The BESTUFS TN can be seen as a follow up and continuation of the COST
321 project.
th
Projects of the 4 Within the 4th framework programme several projects are related to urban
framework
programme
goods movements dealing with organisational, operational, technical and
economical aspects.
Important projects are: DIRECT, ELCIDIS, EUROTOLL, EUROSCOPE,
IDIOMA, IMAURO, LEAN, MOMENTUM, MOSAIC, MOST, PROPOLIS,
PROSPECTS, REFORM and SURFF. These projects have been identified
within the BESTUFS project during a clustering process considering urban
goods transport themes as freight centres, traffic access restrictions etc. For
Introduction
more information see www.cordis.lu.

Introduction
th th
Projects of the 5 Also within the 5 framework programme (1998-2002) there are a number of
framework
programme
projects linked to urban goods transport such as EUTPII, PROGRESS,
SULOGTRA, REVEAL, OSSA, MOST or CUPID (all within the sub-
programme “competitive and sustainable growth”). For more information
see www.cordis.lu.
Other demonstration projects concerning Clean Urban Transport are
currently starting as a result of the CIVITAS Initiative (CIty-VITAlity-
Sustainability), which had been launched in autumn 2000 by the European
Commission as a joint Initiative between Key action Economic and Efficient
Energy of the “Energy” Programme and the Key Action Sustainable Mobility
and Intermodality of the “Growth” Programme). 14 EU-cities (Aalborg,
Barcelona, Berlin, Bremen, Bristol, Cork, Gothenburg, Graz, Lille, Nantes,
Rome, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Winchester) and five associated cities
from the accession countries (Bucharest, Gdynia, Kaunas, Pécs and
Prague) are participating in pilot projects combating congestion and
pollution through technologies and measures that range from the
introduction of new information and transport management systems to the
promotion of "clean" vehicle fleets for passengers and goods.
BESTUFS More extensive information on complementary research activities related to
Clustering report
the BESTUFS topic of urban freight transport can be found in the BESTUFS
Clustering report (Deliverable D 4.3). The BESTUFS Clustering report
relates the BESTUFS themes to the body of research activity from
European and national sources by clustering relevant R&TD projects around
the BESTUFS key themes. It is available at www.bestufs.net.
1.2.2 National level
On national level the activities concerning urban goods transport vary

largely between the European countries.
Since the beginning of 1990 especially France (COST 321, Programme
national marchandise en ville) but also Spain (COST 321, initiatives of
single cities), Switzerland (COST 321, DIANE 6, City of Zurich), Belgium
(COST 321, urban freight transport plans), Italy (COST 321, urban freight
transport plans), Denmark (COST 321, cities of Copenhagen, Aarborg,
Arhus), Germany (COST 321) and the Netherlands (COST 321) are active
in urban goods transport issues. However, the concerns and also the
activities differ very much between the cities within a country.
Introduction
1.3 Themes to be treated within BESTUFS

Identified themes As a result of the first BESTUFS workshop on 16th/17th May 2000 in
within the first
BESTUFS
Brussels the following catalogue of themes has been determined to be
workshop considered with priority within the BESTUFS project (the themes in italics
have already been treated so far):
• Statistical data, data acquisition and data analysis regarding urban
freight transport
• City access, parking regulations and access time regulations
• Enforcement support (e.g. by video control)
• Models and methods to deal with the complexity of urban freight
transport chains and the shared responsibilities
• Improved management of the urban road space and the kerbside
access
• Relationship and harmonisation between the urban, regional, national
and European legislation
• Innovative urban freight transport ideas (e.g. via underground systems,
pipelines, etc.)
• The role of rail in urban freight
• Intelligent transport systems (ITS), transport telematics applications and
systems
• Public-private-partnerships (PPP) and stimulation e.g. via freight forums
• Enhanced signage and information systems (e.g. variable message
signs - VMS)
• E-commerce and distribution (home shopping)
• Innovative vehicle technology and functionalities (e.g. low-emission
vehicles)
• Land use, infrastructure and regulations planning

• Enhanced usage and maintenance of infrastructure (e.g. via a road map
for transport vehicles)
• Intermodal transfer facilities
• Integration of distribution centres and traffic management
• Goods transport efficiency, assessment and pricing (e.g. how to identify
costs?)
• Infrastructural solutions (e.g. to improve loading and unloading).
Introduction
Further themes • Freight centres

• Traffic planning and policy
• Weights and dimensions
• Transport units
• Unusual transport modes (bicycles, etc.)
• Road pricing, tolls and heavy vehicle fees
• Door to door freight transport aspects

• Co-operation of transport operators
• Interfaces between public and goods transport
• Improvements for citizens/inhabitants
• Win-win situations
These themes form the basis for the further thematic focus to be treated in
the BESTUFS thematic network.
Themes treated in The following two themes were derived from the first workshop on
2000
“Identification of thematic network priority themes” to be treated with priority:
• Statistical data, data acquisition and data analysis regarding urban
freight transport.
• City access, parking regulations and access time regulations and
enforcement support.
These two themes are discussed in detail in the Best Practise Handbook
Year 2000 (BESTUFS Deliverable D 2.1, see www.bestufs.net).
Themes treated in In the year 2001 four themes have been addressed, each in a particular
2001
workshop:
• Innovative vehicle technologies
• Changing urban transport due to E-commerce and E-logistics
• Rail based transport: a disappearing opportunity or a challenge for
urban areas ?
• City access fees and urban pricing: what are the consequences for
urban freight transport ?
The theme “E-commerce and urban freight distribution” is dealt with in this
present Best Practice Handbook Year 2 (2001). For “Innovative vehicle
technologies” and “Urban rail freight” the BESTUFS newsletters, the
minutes of the workshops and the presentations themselves (all available at
Introduction
www.bestufs.net) provide more information. Finally, the theme “Urban road

pricing” will be part of the next Best Practice Handbook Year 3 (2002).
1.4 Aims, contents and use of the handbook
Aims of Best In the field of urban goods transport, the Best Practice Handbooks aim at
Practice Handbooks
• giving information and hints about innovative ongoing strategies,
concepts and activities in European countries,
• providing knowledge and experiences of completed and running
projects and actions
• providing contacts for further information.
Contents of this The present Best Practice Handbook is related to the theme “E-commerce
handbook
and urban freight distribution” and consists of:
• BESTUFS definition of “Best Practice” (chapter 2)
• Overview on national situations and relevant projects (chapter 3.2)
• Case studies and experiences (chapter 3.3 and 3.4)
• Conclusions and recommendations (chapter 3.5)
The material for this handbook has been collected and completed by the
BESTUFS contractors and members including important inputs from the
involved experts and the workshop.
Use of the handbook The main focus of this handbook is to get an European overview of
solutions and existing activities related to e-commerce and urban freight
distribution. The results are described as experiences rather than as a
thorough scientific analysis.
Continuation and The Best Practice Handbook Year 2 is the second in a series of four
actualisation
handbooks within the BESTUFS thematic network. The First Best Practise
Handbook (Year 2000) treats “Statistical data, data acquisition and data
analysis” and “City access, parking regulations and access time regulations
and enforcement support". At the end of the BESTUFS project it is planned
to provide a “final” integrated and updated version.
Introduction
Comments from Remarks and input regarding this Best Practice Handbook are welcome.
readers
Please send your ideas for updates and additions to the following address:
Martin Ruesch
RAPP AG Ingenieure + Planer
Oerlikonerstrasse 38
8057 Zürich, Switzerland
martin.ruesch@rapp.ch
Tel.: +41 1 312 36 65
Fax: +41 1 312 32 13
Or to the BESTUFS administration centre:
BESTUFS Administration centre

P.O. Box 1969
2280 DZ Rijswijk, The Netherlands
bestufs@nea.nl
Tel.: +31 70 3988 393
Fax: +31 70 3988 426
Best Practices
2 Best Practices
Identification of Best In order to develop a common framework for best urban freight solutions as
Practices
many as possible relevant aspects which might have an impact on urban
freight transport are considered. In general, different “types” of actions,
research and activities can be identified to characterise best practice
solutions for urban freight transport.
A best practice solution does not necessarily focus on particular measures
such as the implementation of freight centres in urban distribution traffic.
Also activities without direct impact on the actors of urban transport
operations such as the improvement of the data and information basis or of
planning tools in urban freight transport are considered. The following
“types” of action can be part of best practice solutions:
• Projects, actions and activities where goods transport changes are
realised – “vertical” projects. Normally, these projects are directly
related to a particular problem in urban freight transport.
• Projects, actions and activities which will not directly lead to changed
urban freight transport operations but which provide tools and/or
knowledge to influence and prepare decisions in urban freight traffic –
“horizontal” projects. These projects are focusing on the improvement of
overall planning and basic knowledge, i.e. data collection, education,
planning tools etc. Usually, they are not directly related to a particular
problem.
Sources of Best To analyse existing and ongoing projects in the field of urban freight
Practices and
thematic structuring
transport a thematic structure is applied. This approach allows to structure
all relevant material available concerning the prioritised themes of the
BESTUFS network and supports the analysis of the projects.
To identify best practice in urban freight transport three “sources” will be
used within the BESTUFS project:
• First, a formal approach is followed by providing tools as a thematic
structure, suitable attributes and parameters as well as assessment
directions.
• Second, a pragmatic approach is realised in order to assess ongoing
projects as well as available project results on their contents.
• Third, workshops, conferences and clustering meetings are organised in
order to extract experiences and knowledge from experts.
Best Practices
The following graphic describes the action lines:
Tools
Contents
(formal background)
(pragmatic approach)
Catalogue of Determination of thematic focus

Workshops
themes
New projects/results
Screening existing
projects/results
Conferences
Selection process
Catalogue of
attributes and
parameters Classification of Clustering Cluster
projects/results projects meetings
Catalogue of
assessment directions Extracting good practices
Ranking the good practices

and results according to
their importance
Recommendations
on urban freight solutions
Figure 1: Sources of Best practices and thematic structuring
BESTUFS definition Best Practices are planned or implemented private only, public only or
of Best Practice
Public Private Partnership (PPP) strategies, measures or activities which
have an essential contribution to urban goods transport and ideally lead to
benefits for all actors involved. Best Practices will be identified on the
fulfilment degree regarding the following requirements:
• Best Practices have to fit to a defined theme or address a relevant
problem with respect to the movement of goods in urban areas (see
structure of themes).
• Best Practices should be based on real experiences (real world
implementations, pilot projects) or analysis in studies.
• Best Practices should have considerable and measurable positive
effects for all actors (qualitative, quantitative) on relevant indicators of
urban goods transport.
Best Practices
Best Practice In the light of this definition the project examples described in the following
examples in this
Handbook
chapters of this Handbook represent rather a cross-section of initiatives
regarding e-commerce and urban freight transport than a “Best Practice”
selection in the term’s judging sense. Many projects are currently in a
planning or implementing stage which does not allow a final assessment of
feasibility and experiences (e.g. economic viability, user acceptance).
Particularly the presented private commercial initiatives (e.g. e-shops)
should be seen as examples of innovative e-commerce projects rather than
as best in class solutions.
E-commerce and urban freight distribution
3 E-Commerce and urban freight distribution (home

shopping)
3.1 Introduction
E-commerce is one of the themes which can currently be found in all
newspapers’ headings. E-commerce is a fast growing market with the
potential to revolutionise not only whole businesses but also lifestyle
patterns and even societies. That makes it also a high priority issue for
logistics service providers, forwarders and shippers. It has therefore been
th
treated within the 4 BESTUFS-workshop and might well be a topic of a
further workshop in order to show the developments within this fast
changing economic sector.
What is There is a great variability of definitions on e-commerce. According to

e-commerce?
Browne [2000] e-commerce can be regarded as “the purchase of goods,
services or other financial transactions in which the interactive process is
mediated by information or digital technology at both, locationally separate
ends of the interchange”. In this broad sense e-commerce was practised by
companies already 20 years ago in the form of Electronic Data Interchange
(EDI), the transmission of standardized information (EDIFACT) between
businesses by electronic means. But it was not until the nineties that the
Internet offered the possibilities to replace these highly dedicated solutions
by more open systems and thus started the triumphant advance of e-
commerce.
E-commerce and Nowadays the information society is changing the lifestyle of European
transport
citizens and in some cases the fundamental mechanisms of the European
economy. But the information society does not necessarily mean that goods
and passenger movements will decrease. They will however change as a
result of developments in e-commerce practices. These changes will also
influence the structure of goods deliveries and passenger transports in the
cities. New problems might arise requiring innovative solutions and different
framework conditions.
B2B and B2C Within e-commerce a distinction is usually made between business-to-
business (B2B) and business-to-consumers relationships (B2C). Although
this distinction is not directly related to the use of information technology
(IT) it is usually used in relation to e-commerce as e-commerce is
restructuring whole value chains transferring B2B-businesses into B2C-

businesses (disintermediation) and vice versa.
The distinction between B2B and B2C should not hide the strong links
between the two concepts. Any business model including more than 2
parties is inevitably partly B2B-business, as per definition only the front end
relationship can be B2C (if at all). For example a retailer selling products
online to customers is considered B2C, but as soon as logistics are
outsourced, this part of the value chain becomes B2B. Still the distinction
can be useful with regard to different characteristics of both relationships.
Transport in B2B B2B-e-commerce is typically characterised by a flow of information by

e-commerce
means of new information and communication technologies allowing closer
and more widespread collaboration between different companies. Obviously
this affects goods transports as well as passenger transport patterns (e.g.
more long distance business trips versus less personal meetings thanks to
new communication media).
Logistics Information technology enables the establishment of e-platforms and e-

marketplaces /
freight exchanges
exchanges for logistics services, i.e. electronic marketplaces for freight
transports and other logistics services. Such systems lead to greater
transparency which increases competition and offers opportunities to
consolidate orders, increase vehicle capacity utilisation and improve
vehicles fleets. This can contribute to reduce traffic and freight costs. One
successful example of a large freight exchange is www.teleroute.com which
claims to have 35’000 professional users in real time and 56’000 offers
being posted every day. With teleroute transport operators can find a
subcontractor on the basis of pertinent criteria such as departure and arrival
geographical zones and time, weight and type of goods. The company also
offers other services like information on transport related events, hosting of
web pages and financial applications. [Quispel; 2001] However, not all
freight exchanges are that successful. There are many hampering factors
too, such as inappropriate loads (difficult to standardise), unreliable logistics
service providers, mistrust among the market players, reluctance to share
know-how, lack of neutrality among the exchange providers, problems in
finding appropriate pricing mechanisms, etc. [Polzin; 1999] After a period of
enthusiasm, B2B marketplaces in general are currently experiencing a
backlash. A study by Mercer Consulting Company locates three main
reasons. First, companies want to establish long-term customer
relationships rather than fighting endless price-wars. Second, by focussing
on the price aspect e-marketplaces are by far more attractive for demanders
than for suppliers who fear transparency and forcing down of prices. Finally,
there is no need for several identical marketplaces. [Heuer; 2001] All this
indicates, that the market for this price competing transport is probably not
too big.
Transport in B2C B2C means business that sells products or provides services to end-user
e-commerce
consumers. Online-shopping - or home-shopping - is the main business
model for B2C activities and often used as equivalent term, although it often
includes B2B relations too. Online shopping today accounts for less than
20% of the e-commerce market and its share of overall economy sales is
still infinitely small. However, it’s a fast growing business and its potential for
revolutionising whole lifestyle patterns and traditional business models is not
to be underestimated. Concerning the physical distribution channels in
general three categories of products have to be considered:
• For certain products there is no physical distribution delivery (e.g.
downloading of software or music).
• For many products there are existing physical distribution channels
along which the products can flow. (e.g. books purchased over the
internet are handled by existing physical distribution channels of
express companies and postal networks).
• For some products there is no existing physical distribution channel and
it is necessary to establish entirely new means of supplying goods to
customers (e.g. grocery home shopping which might require investment
in and the operation of entirely new distribution platforms and vehicle
fleets).
Figure 2 shows the main categories of goods purchased by world-wide

online-shoppers today.
Women’s clothing
Men’s clothing
Food, drink
Event tickets
Flowers
Videos, films
Air travel reservations

CDs, recorded music
Books
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
Figure 2: Percentage of online-shoppers buying different goods

[Ernst & Young; 2000]
Consumer-at-home A crucial question for the delivery channels is whether the addressee has to
problem
be present at time of delivery, whether for signing the receipt or for lack of
storage facilities. Delivery to workplaces or pick-up points such as local
stores, gas stations, restaurants, etc. can be another solution to the
consumer-at-home problem.
Impact on urban Whereas the impact of B2B-e-commerce on urban traffic might well be
traffic
neutral or positive it seems obvious that home shopping will lead to an
increase in urban freight movements due to the related home delivery
services. This is especially important as the additional freight traffic will
occur in highly sensitive residential areas. On the other hand private
passenger transports and shopping trips might decrease. If direct home
delivery would succeed at a large scale even the deliveries to retail-shops
within a city might be reduced. There could be a net benefit for the public,
i.e. less traffic, if high levels of freight vehicle utilisation can be achieved
and if former private shopping trips are not substituted with other car-related
activities.
Fast changing Material regarding the situation of e-commerce in general and e-commerce
information
related projects in different European countries were collected by the
different BESTUFS contractors and members. Further input came from the
involved experts and the workshop. The following chapters summarise the
main findings of the material collection on country and project level. As e-
commerce is a fast growing and quickly changing market the available

information and its assessment represents today’s situation only. It might
change rapidly depending on the future evolution and further diffusion of
e-commerce.
Other related The following other European or national research projects dealing with e-
projects
commerce and urban freight have been identified: [BESTUFS; 2001]
• EUROSCOPE (Efficient urban transport operation services co-operation
of port cities in Europe: Traveller information, logistical information and
communication, traffic management)
• IMAURO (Integrated Model for the Analysis of Urban Route
Optimisation)
• PDS (Forum for Physical distribution in Urban Areas)
• French national research program on urban freight (Enquêtes
quantitatives TMV)
• SURFF (Sustainable Urban and Regional Freight Flows)
• UFMB (Urban Freight Management in Barcelona)
• SULOGTRA (Effects on Transport of Trends in Logistics and Supply
Chain Management)
• Euro-CASE (The European Council of Applied Sciences and Logistics)
study on freight logistics and transport systems in Europe
3.2 Situation at country level
14 countries Material on 14 countries has been collected, covering the whole European
represented
Union except Portugal, Ireland and Luxembourg, plus Switzerland and
Norway.
Fast growing Among all the countries participating in the material collection there seems
importance of E-
commerce
to be one general consensus about e-commerce, namely that its importance
will be growing, whether it is within B2B or B2C (see Figure 3 and Figure 4).
Although single countries’ judgements might differ slightly, 3 general
findings can be stated:
• E-commerce is of rather little importance compared to the whole
economy but growing very fast.
• B2B business covers a much larger share of the e-commerce market
than B2C (in general around 80%).
• In spite of its still very low overall importance B2C e-commerce (online
shopping) is considered more important with special regards to urban
freight movement because of its higher potential for changing the urban
transport patterns.
The spread in the assessment of B2C e-commerce importance reflects
rather different assumptions and personal biases of the answering experts
than real differences between countries, because in any of the European
countries the turnover created by B2C online shopping represents less than
1% of the total retail commerce (see Figure 5). This small percentage
explains the frequent rating “very low” whereas those who attributed a
medium or high importance to B2C e-commerce probably had its potentially
large influence on urban transport in mind. In any case, no clear pattern is
visible among the different answers.
7
6
5
B2B Today
4
B2B Future
3
2
1
0
very low low medium high very high
Figure 3: Growing importance of B2B e-commerce
4
B2C Today
3
B2C Future
2
0
very low low medium high very high
Figure 4: Growing importance of B2C e-commerce
Existing national In all European countries e-commerce is considered a highly innovative

studies
issue and a big variety of national studies on the topic have been
elaborated. However, most of them focus rather on consumer behaviour,
companies’ strategies, market potential, electronic payment issues, etc. than
on transport. Although some studies do assess e-commerce with regards to
transport and traffic there is no study available so far focussing on urban
transport patterns.
Legal framework At the moment there is no special legislation concerning e-commerce in any
conditions
of the participating European country. However, legal issues are discussed
in most of the countries, especially with regards to electronic transactions
and consumer data protection. In some countries legal frameworks are
currently being implemented or draft versions are being discussed:
• Belgium is putting in place a “framework” based on EU directives.
• In Greece a Presidential Decree has been drafted by a special expert

committee in order to strengthen security and transparency in electronic
transactions.
• Norway has set its objectives and strategies concerning e-commerce in
the White Paper No. 41 1998-99 (English summary:
http://odin.dep.no/nhd/norsk/publ/veiledninger/024031-120002/index-
dok000-b-n-a.html)
• In Spain there is a normative draft in order to regulate the services
around e-commerce (see Project E - 01).
• In Switzerland a new law is going to be established which will give Swiss
consumers the same protection concerning e-commerce as European
consumers.
Of course, the existing city access regulations can result in constraints for
the distribution of products ordered electronically by consumers or
businesses in (inner) cities.
Private initiatives In Austria a consumer oriented quality certification system concerning e-

commerce has been established. 14 firms are certified so far, 66 are
currently being evaluated. [Dorner; 2001]
In Belgium, the Belgian Business Federation (FEB) published a voluntary
Code of Conduct for e-commerce in August 2000.
Different levels of There are substantial differences between the countries’ levels of online-
development: North-
South digital divide
shopping activities, although a general pattern among European countries is
hard to recognise from the collected data. However, the southern European
countries seem to show less online-shopping activities than the northern
countries, confirming the existence of a so called “North-South digital
divide”. This finding corresponds with the results of a study on e-commerce
by the Boston Consulting Group (see Figure 5) and a recent OECD study
(see Figure 6). According to the latter, the Scandinavian countries, the UK,
Germany and the Netherlands are among the online-shopping pioneers in
Europe (depending on which indicator is used). However, this is still far
behind the US figures. The United States remain the largest market for B2C
e-commerce, currently accounting for more than three quarters of the
world’s total. [OECD; 2001] The low online-shopping activities in countries
such as Greece, Italy, Spain, Belgium or to a lower extent France are at
least partly explained by one or several of the following reasons:
Spain/Portugal 0.06
Italy 0.09
France 0.14
Belgium 0.16
Denmark 0.20
Finland 0.22
Austria 0.23
Norway 0.26
Switzerland 0.29
Germany 0.30
Netherlands 0.34
United Kingdom 0.37
Sweden 0.68
United States 1.01
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2
Figure 5: Turnover generated by online shopping in percent of total

retail sales in 1999 [BCG; 2000]
Spain/Portugal 1
Italy 1
France 2
Austria 2.2
Sw itzerland 2.7
Belgium 3
Sw eden 4.6
Finland 4.7
Germany 5
Netherlands 5
United Kingdom 5
Denmark 9
Norw ay 11
United States 16
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Figure 6: Internet shoppers as a percentage of working age population

[OECD; 2001]
General IT The countries differ in their level of using IT applications, whether B2B or
development
B2C. This is due to their different level of economic activity but also to their
different economical structure. Large companies have been drivers to the e-
development, whereas small companies usually lack financial resources to
be pioneers. The fact that e.g. in Italy Small and Medium Enterprises (4/5 of
them with less than 15 employees !) account for 92% of the Gross Domestic
Product partly explains the country’s backwardness towards e-commerce.
[Ruberti; 2001]
Public Internet Obviously Internet access for the consumers is a key condition to online-
access
shopping activities. But whereas 80% of the Swedish population have
Internet access at home or work, this is true for only 45% of the Fins and in
Greece Internet access is still limited to 10% of the population. [Firth; 2001]
However, although easy Internet access is key to online-shopping it does
not necessarily mean that the online-community also does so. Whereas in
Sweden only 10% of all Internet users also shop in the Web, this percentage
almost doubles for Norway or the UK. [OECD; 2001]
Logistics capabilities People’s propensity to use home shopping possibilities depends heavily on
and costs
the price-quality relation of the service offered, i. e. among other quick and
cheap delivery. Thus, the absence of a large number of distribution
networks and big logistics operators in countries like Italy is a barrier to the
development of e-commerce. Whereas in the UK an average home delivery
takes 4 days at a cost of 4 EUR, in Italy it takes 16 days and still costs 7
EUR. As a consequence home shopping is still to be developed in Italy.
[Ruberti; 2001]
Shopping habits Even with all other factors being equal online shopping activities would still
differ between countries due to different shopping habits. In Belgium
consumers prefer to touch products before buying them and are reluctant to
choosing products either on a catalogue or on the Internet, whereas in
France, especially in the northern cities and in medium size cities there is a
strong tradition of mail-ordering. Also home delivery after traditional
shopping in a physical store is quite common in France. In the UK there is
still door step delivery for milk.
Often neglected is the social aspect in shopping which in some countries is
more marked than in others. In Spain shopping trips are often done on
Saturdays including the whole family and are perceived as social events
with meeting friends and drinking coffee.
Confidence in new Lack of confidence in forms of electronic payment is another common
forms of payment
hurdle to online-shopping. In countries with a widespread use of credit cards
where consumers could build up confidence in non-cash-related financial
technologies one would expect less resistance to new technologies like e-
cash or e-signatures. This is rather true for the Nordic than for the southern
countries (Scandinavian countries were among the first with a dense

network of Automatic Teller Machines).
Online shopping In general the shopping baskets of online customers look quite similar all
baskets
over Europe. Books, music, software and travel related products are
dominating, probably not least because they can be delivered using existing
distribution channels. When it comes to food and groceries the picture is
less homogenous. Whereas in countries like Austria, France, the UK,
Switzerland and the Netherlands online shoppers also buy food via Internet
(still a minority though), this sales channel is far less used in other countries
- if at all. For instance Greek consumers are very reluctant to buying food,
furniture and clothes via Internet, although this might be due to the country’s
general low level of e-commerce development.
Although e-commerce brings along the possibility of borderless trade, online
sales continue to take place mostly within the consumer’s home country or
region: 80% of European B2C e-commerce takes place within Europe.
[BCG; 2000]
Heterogeneous data There are many figures available on national e-commerce development, but
the available information is very heterogeneous. Statistical data is referring
to different samples of different sets. It is therefore very difficult to directly
compare these figures. This applies not only to the material collection for
the present Best Practise Handbook but to statistics on e-commerce in
general, as stated by a recent OECD study. [OECD; 2001]
Effects on national Information on national particularities concerning the effects of e-commerce

transport patterns
on logistic chains and passenger as well as goods transports is generally
scarce or even non-existent. In Germany the market is dominated by the so
called Portal Strategy where a web-portal aims at generating a sufficiently
high volume of sales in order to make the delivery (to workplace, home or
pick-up points) from a central warehouse economically viable. Many home
delivery services are provided by large parcel services such as Deutsche
Post. The German parcel market is expected to almost double within the
next 5 years. [Vastag; 2001] In France, most grocery online shopping
solutions rely on dedicated picking warehouses, although some operators
have chosen to go back to shelf picking in the physical shops in order to
save money. However, this business is nowhere profitable yet. [Dablanc;
2001] The same process can be observed among British online food
retailers. [Mortimer; 2001]. In Switzerland, the City of Zurich is aware of the
problems which might be generated by online-shopping (e.g. additional
traffic, increase of small consignments, etc.). A first step is therefore the
integration of pick-up and delivery points within the land use and traffic
planning (reservation of special areas). [Glücker; 2001]
Single countries A more detailed report on each country’s situation concerning e-commerce
and urban freight distribution is given in Annex I.
3.3 Regarded case studies (project-level)
33 projects collected Within the material collection on the theme e-commerce 35 projects were
- focus on B2C
online-shopping
collected (for a description of all projects see Annex II). Figure 7 shows that
the majority of the collected case studies is concerning B2C online-shopping
projects. The following analysis will therefore focus on this segment. The
high number of studies highlights the avant-garde character of the topic.
Many projects are internal projects of private companies. As they want to
protect their innovation lead against competitors these projects are often
classified confidential and access to information is restricted. Furthermore,
information on the economic success of the projects is scarce. Therefore,
projects should be seen rather as examples of innovative business solutions
than as best practise cases in the usual BESTUFS-definition. More general
case studies on e-commerce can be found at http://www.isss-
awareness.cenorm.be/home/Home_frame.htm.
Law
Study
E-consultancy
B2C B2B only
B2C offline
B2C online (general solution)
B2C online (dedicated project)
Figure 7: Different categories among the collected projects
Approaches for the The B2C-shopping examples can be further divided according to their
last mile solution
solution of the last mile distribution problem. Figure 8 shows the number of
projects using different approaches to this key problem. Annex III lists the
collected examples and their applied last-mile solutions in detail. Usually not
only one possibility is offered, but the customer is given the choice among
various possibilities. However, for some projects the applied approach was
not very clear from the available information. Furthermore, the border
between time-slot delivery and non-timed delivery is blurred as the time-
window expands.
pick-up point
lockerpoint
(unattended)
delivery on
appointment
time-slot delivery
untimed delivery
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
Figure 8: Number of projects relying on different last-mile solutions
Online-shopping
projects
Table 1 gives an overview on the 13 online-shopping examples. Almost all
of them offer the full range of supermarket products, food and non-food,
some on a national level, others are restricted to certain cities and regions.
As groceries are perishable goods a majority opted for developing new
distribution channels instead of contracting the existing post and parcel
services. Some combined existing logistics services with new concepts of
delivery. Old distribution channels alone are only used for non-food items
(e.g. books, CDs, etc.). Many of the online-shops are affiliated to existing
brick-and-mortar shops or supermarkets, only two are purely online.
Although some claim to be profitable it is quite probable that most of them
aren’t so far. These might be considered as strategic investments in a future
market (knowledge development) or as marketing tools for image creation.
Assessment of the The following project descriptions show examples of planned or

projects
implemented e-commerce projects and assess the experiences made. As
many innovative projects are planned or set-up a selection had to be done.
The following aspects were considered:
• Relevance for BESTUFS, innovative character and contribution to solve
problems
• Success / failure and important experiences

• Balance among countries and approaches
• Availability of further information.
Code Project / URL Product range Turnover Operating area logistic channels Physical (brick-
(Million EUR) and-mortar)
shops ?
BE - 01 Ready.be supermarket products not profitable City new Yes
BE - 03 www.caddyhome.be full supermarket range 11 Region new Yes
BE - 04 www.proxis.be Books, Audio, Video n. a. International old / new No
CH - 01 www.migros-shop.ch 3500 daily use products n. a. Regions new Yes
CH - 03 www.le-shop.ch > 4000 daily use products 4 National old No
CH - 04 www.lidomarkt.ch > 3300 daily use products n. a. National / Region old / new Yes
CH - 05 www.spar.ch > 2500 daily use products n. a. 3 cities new Yes
D - 01 www.einkauf24.de 3000 daily use products n. a. 2 cities new Yes
E - 02 www.elcorteingles.es full supermarket range n. a. National / Regions old / new Yes

1
F - XX www.telemarket.fr grocery goods 50 City old / new No
1
F - XX www.houra.fr grocery goods n. a. national old / new No
F - 05 www.achat-grenoble.com platform for various stores n. a. City new Yes
GR - 01 Veropoulos Kat’oikon supermarket products not operational City not known Yes
NL - 01 http://ah-thuisservice.ah.nl/hss/shop 7000 daily use products n. a. National new Yes
UK - 01 www.tesco.com full supermarket range 185 National new Yes

1
n. a. = not available These initiatives are displayed for comparative reasons and do not appear in the “project collection”
Table 1: Overview on all online-shop examples collected

Example 3.1: Example 3.1: RelayStar (Benelux and UK)

Benelux and UK
[Quispel; 2001, Dujardin; 2001]
Key words fuel stations, pick-up points, open to all e-shops, limited to motorised
customers
Framework RelayStar is a pick-up point solution for e-retailers and their online
conditions and
objectives
customers aiming at solving the last mile delivery problem including reverse
logistics. It is a joint venture between the global energy company Texaco
and the world’s largest express and package carrier United Parcel Service
UPS. RelayStar tackles B2C challenges using B2B logistics by combining
Texaco’s large network of retail outlets with UPS’ world-wide expertise in
logistics and e-fulfilment. The service is limited to products that weigh less
than 15kg. Furthermore products must not be perishable and must not
exceed the value of 2000 EUR.
Approach RelayStar is using the Texaco fuel stations as delivery / pick-up points for
products ordered online at the participating retailer’s website. The delivery
itself is done by UPS. During the process of delivery the customer is
informed about the whereabouts of the ordered goods by means of the
package being scanned. Due to the good coverage of Texaco fuel stations
in the Benelux and their long opening hours the consumer can easily pick up
the package. The whole process is organised as follows:
1. The customer orders the desired products at one of the participating
retailers’ web-site. He chooses the desired pick-up point among the
network of 400 (Benelux) and 600 (United Kingdom) Texaco fuel
stations. Thereby, he is assisted by a map based overview on the whole
network, giving additional information such as the Texaco station’s
phone number, opening hours, etc. (see Figure 9). Payments are
handled online at the site of the retailer at the time of purchase.
Figure 9: Choice of pick-up point [www.relaystar.com]
2. An e-mail notifies the customer that his order has been registered with
the retailer who sends the parcel with UPS. This e-mail contains a link to
the customer’s own customised tracking page where he can trace the
delivery status of his package at any time via the RelayStar tracking
system. The package is identified by a unique tracking number and a
scanner system.
3. When the package arrives at the Texaco fuel station, the RelayStar
manager signs for delivery. A delivery confirmation by e-mail informs
the customer that his goods are ready to be collected. The package is
fully insured and safely stored for a maximum of 14 workdays until the
customer arrives for collection. After 14 days the package will be
automatically returned to the retailer.
4. Upon arrival the customer presents the order number mentioned in the
confirmation mail and a valid form of identification and picks up his
package.
5. The customer can also return the goods via the same pick-up point.
For an information flow overview see Figure 10.
Figure 10: Information Flow Overview [Dujardin; 2001]
Results and RelayStar is currently operational in the Benelux and is being rolled out in
experiences
the United Kingdom. It is foreseen that in the near future other countries will
be added and that other high quality retail networks will be included in the
RelayStar solution. Currently four e-retailer are using the RelayStar solution,
namely dvdzone2.com (Media), redcorp.com (Computer products),
printclub.nl and winesmart.com (Wine). Six other online retailers are
announced to offer RelayStar delivery in the near future.
It is not known how RelayStar influences urban transport patterns. However,
by relying on gas stations as pick-up points the projects addresses car users
only. Customers of public transport are out of its focus.
More information Mr. Jos Dujardin

Director e-commerce, United Parcel Service
jos.dujardin@europe.ups.com
www. relaystar.com
See also References and contact persons!
Example 3.2: Example 3.2: PickPoint AG (Germany, Austria, UK)

Germany, Austria,
UK
[Huschebeck; 2001;Schubert et al.; 2001; Bischofs / Riemer; 2001; Eichner;
2001]
Key words integrates different pick-up points, open to all e-shops and customers,
network entry barriers, mapping tools for location
Reasons, framework The idea for the PickPoint AG was born when its founder, a young and busy
conditions and
objectives
business consultant, got sick of always being absent when the goods he had
ordered on the Internet were delivered to his home. He therefore founded
the company which aims at making life easier for online-shoppers: instead
of the customer’s home the ordered goods are delivered to nearby pick-up
points. Thanks to the long opening hours of these facilities they can be
picked-up at almost any time. Also the goods can be paid upon collection.
PickPoint is a subsidiary company of the German D.Logistics AG and was
founded in June 2000. For the goods transport they co-operate with the
logistics specialists DPD (Parcel Service of the German Post), UPS and
TNT.
Approach PickPoint is a delivery, storage and payment solution open to all kind of
online retailers. Web-shops can join the system by paying licenses to
PickPoint AG. Customers of online-shops that offer the PickPoint solution
can choose delivery to the pick-up point of their choice instead of home
delivery. After ordering the goods are transported to the desired pick-up
point by the logistics partners. The customer gets a notice per e-mail or
SMS when his parcel is ready for collection. After 5 days the customer is
reminded of collection by another message. If the goods are not collected
after 10 days, they are sent back to the sender. The additional costs for
returning are charged to the customer. During the delivery process the
customer can check the current status of his order (status messages: order
processed – parcel being delivered – parcel at pick-up point – parcel being
returned).
As an additional service customers can also use their preferred pick-up
point as delivery address for any other orders, independent from web-shops.
Currently there are about 1700 pick-up points all over Germany and 35 in
Austria. In the United Kingdom the subsidiary company Collectpoint is
operating over 5000 pick-up points. However, more important than the sheer
number of pick-up points is their location at the main arterial roads, says
PickPoint founder Bischofs. [Eichner; 2001] 80% of all pick-up points are
gas stations, others include fitness gyms, video-tape libraries and kiosks. So
far, none of them offers special storage facilities e.g. for frozen goods.
However, one web-shop is delivering fresh meat in chilled Styrofoam-boxes.
Payment (cash or sometimes credit card) is currently possible at more than
80% of the pick-up points.
The license fees for the PickPoint service are currently between 1.5 and 3
Euro per delivery (depending on size and weight) plus a proportional fee for
the payment services similar to the ones charged by credit card companies.
These license fees do not include the actual delivery costs. Some web-
shops do pass on the license fees to their customer. However, the charges
are not a problem for the targeted customer group of busy singles and
working couples, says PickPoint co-founder Björn Heyden. [Eichner; 2001]
With their solution the PickPoint AG aims at overcoming various barriers
with various actors within the value chain: [Bischofs / Riemer; 2001]
• The client has easy access at almost 24 hours to the ordered goods and
does not have to worry about the safety aspects of payment by Internet
if he chooses the PickPoint payment option
• For the Web-shop PickPoint handles return flows
• For the parcel delivery company the goods can be delivered at once
instead of trying several times when the consumer is not at home.
Access to the delivery points is easy. There are no uncertainties about
the delivery address. Consignments can be bundled and an efficient
delivery round set up.
Results and According to the PickPoint AG the concept is growing very fast. About 100
experiences
additional pick-up points complete the network each month. Currently
around 30 web-shops are using the PickPoint service selling all kind of
things from music and books to bike components or toys. For some of them
more than 30% of their total turnover is made using PickPoint delivery.
For establishing the pick-up point network (as in all networks) network
effects have to be overcome. The number of clients and the number of pick-
up points are interdependent: the more dense the network of pick-up points
and web-shops, the more it is attractive for customers; and the more
customer the system attracts the easier it is to convince new web-shops and
pick-up points to participate. To lower these entry barriers the initial effort for
customers as well as for web-shops should be kept low. On the other hand a
more dense network causes higher delivery costs as more points have to be
delivered. From the economic efficiency view there seems to be an
(unknown) optimum number of pick-up points. Furthermore, the
communication of the PickPoint-possibilities in the shops’ web-sites and the
use of road maps for locating the pick-up points turned out to be crucial.
More information www.pickpoint.de

The PickPoint initiative is described in detail - in German only though - in
Schubert et al (2001), p. 160-171.
Member of BESTUFS who did the material collection:
Marcel Huschebeck, PTV

Example 3.3: Example 3.3: Internet House (Berlin)

Berlin
[Huschebeck; 2001; Morgenpost; 2000; ct; 2000; GSC; 2001]
Key words dedicated individual delivery infrastructure, 3 climate storage

compartment, e-living
Reasons, framework Due to excess supply in Berlin’s real estate market the real estate company
conditions and
objectives
Quadriga AG was looking for new business approaches in order to stand out
against its competitors. In 1999 it founded the subsidiary enterprise Q24.net
mainly for promoting what they call e-living, a combination of e-commerce
and real estate business. A pilot Internet house was to be built by the end of
2000. In case of positive response another 800 apartments should be
equipped with the e-living technology.
Approach In the Internet house all apartments are equipped with Internet
communication links and devices. With a password the tenants have access
to an exclusive house community e-commerce portal with a wide range of e-
commerce offers from grocery shopping to Internet banking. For home-
delivery of ordered goods the house is equipped with a special home
delivery installation. “In the cupboard-like box in the wall outside the
apartment the ordered groceries will await the tenant when he comes home
from work at night. The cleaned suit and the freshly ironed shirt are hanging
in a separate compartment” explains Quadriga-speaker Antonios Goros.
The e-living concepts also includes “intelligent installations” such as light,
heating and cooking devices controllable via Internet. A special mobility
concept including car-sharing among the inhabitants is also part of the
concept. Co-operation contracts with UPS, Colt Telecommunications,
Telekom, Siemens, Techem, Smart and Amazon.com have been
established.
Results and It is not known whether the pilot has been built, as the Quadriga AG went
experiences
bankrupt in 2001 for unknown reasons. However, the approach to provide
integrated services and to use specific delivery infrastructure and equipment
is very innovative and could have some potential in the future.
More information Member of BESTUFS who did the material collection:


Example 3.4: Example 3.4: Tower24 (Dortmund)

Dortmund
[Huschebeck; 2001; IML; 2001]
Key words unattended pick-up and delivery infrastructure, fully automatic,

bundling of goods flows
Reasons, framework Due to the atomisation of consignments transport costs have risen
conditions and
objectives
disproportionally to the order volume.
This calls for the development of an optimal fine distribution. The present
time windows for home delivery of about two to four hours are by far not
precise enough. The situation becomes even worse if the customer is not at
home at the fixed delivery time. Decentralised pick-up terminals are
economically sensible alternatives for the door-to-door delivery. Here, goods
flows are bundled up to a suitable location near the customer where he can
collect the goods himself. This helps to reduce logistic costs considerably.
In this context the Fraunhofer-Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML in
Dortmund developed a concept for a decentralised pick-up terminal which
meets the requirements of the sellers, the logistic service providers and
above all of the final consumer. This concept is called
Tower24 - fast, secure and reliable.
Delivery terminal Picking up
Login
Figure 11: Tower24: delivery, storage and picking-up [IML; 2001]

Approach The Tower24 concept is a fully automatic storage system for small
consignments. The system is open to different suppliers and service
providers. The access for supplier and customer is much easier than with
conventional locker systems. The supplier can drive his van directly in front
of the Tower24 for delivery (see Figure 11). The window for entering the
goods is designed in a way that 100 parcels can be stored within 20 Min.
The customer is informed by SMS or e-mail about the arrival of the ordered
goods. He has a 24-hours “drive-in” possibility to pick up his parcel without
leaving the car. As different temperature zones can be generated in the
tower, different commodities can be stored from frozen, to chilled and non
food goods. The customer pays in front of the tower with bank or credit card
or by using his handy. The suppliers are informed about goods that have not
been collected. Tower24 also handles returned consignments and empties.
Results and The main logistic advantage of a pick-up and delivery point system such as
experiences
Tower24 is that goods flows can be bundled. Tower24 combines quick and
cost efficient delivery and picking-up with minimum land use. However there
is a certain risk that such towers will mostly be realised at car oriented
locations without considering the access to public transport. A disadvantage
is that a Tower24 once built cannot be enlarged. There are no real-world
experiences with Tower24 so far. A pilot shall be operational in Dortmund in
Autumn 2001.
More information Project-team eLogistiX:

Dipl.-Ing. Lars Siebel
Joseph-von-Fraunhofer-Straße 2-4
44227 Dortmund
Telefon: +49 (0)231/9743-235
Telefax: +49 (0)231/9743-311
E-Mail: info@elogistix.de
www.iml.fhg.de
www.tower24.de


Example 3.5: Example 3.5: Magasin de Quartier (Ile-de-France, Paris)

Paris
[Dablanc; 2001]
Key words delivery depots, for both shop keepers and private end-consumers
Reasons, framework The “Magasin de Quartier”-project is one of the leading projects on urban
conditions and
objectives
goods transport for the Paris region. Its main objective is reducing the
number of home deliveries in dense commercial/residential areas of Paris
and the surrounding municipalities using local delivery depots. The project
has been proposed in the regional transport plan of 2000. The first delivery
depots are planned to open not before end of 2002, with a possible
involvement of Paris CCI, transport operators and public governments.
Demand for such an initiative is coming from two sides:
• Demand by transport operators who fear an increase in home deliveries
and subsequent problems (delivery hours, closed doors, stairs, etc.)
• Demand by public institutions (City of Paris, Regional Council) in order
to alleviate traffic congestion due to commercial traffic and deliveries in
dense areas.
Approach Magasins de Quartier are drop-off zones for transport operators delivering
parcels ordered by any kind of communication means: mail order,
telephone, fax or Internet. The local delivery depots are small scale
terminals (no more than a few hundreds m2) and are located in dense
commercial or residential areas. Each could be operated by 2 or 3 full time
employees. The local delivery zones will be opened from early in the
morning till late in the evening. Carriers will be able to leave parcels and
goods in this depot instead of delivering them all the way to their clients
(whether shop keepers or households). Clients will then be informed about
the availability of their products. They either come and pick them up
themselves or the employees of the Magasin de Quartier will deliver them at
an extra cost. From the Magasin de Quartier the delivery to the client will be
very short distance making it possible to deliver without motor vehicle.
The special thing about Magasins de Quartier is that they should service
both private (end-)consumers as well as (retail-)shop keepers.
Results and The project has not been implemented yet. But the experiment is strongly
experiences
supported by transport companies and their organisations.
More information Carole BOUBLIL

Direction des Etudes, CCI de Paris
27 avenue de Friedland
75008 Paris, France
cboublil@ccip.fr

Laetitia Dablanc, GART

Example 3.6: Example 3.6: Caddy-Home (Brussels and surroundings)

Brussels and
surroundings
[Van Isacker; 2001; www.caddyhome.be]
Key words online supermarket, time-slot delivery, pick-up point with short time
parking in the city centre
Reasons, framework Caddy-Home is the online-supermarket of Delhaize, one of Belgium’s main

conditions and
objectives
supermarket chains. The initiative started already 14 years ago, at that time
based on telephone and fax. Deliveries are made in and around Brussels.
Figure 12: Caddy-Home home delivery service

[www.caddyhome.be]
Approach New e-shoppers on the site need to fill in a form to become clients of
Caddy-Home. They are then provided with a client number and a password.
Once the client number and the password are received, the customer may
order products by telephone, fax, or via Internet. He may choose among
thousands of products sold in the Delhaize ”Le Lion” supermarkets.
Purchased products are delivered to the customer’s home. Delivery is
charged at a flat rate of ca. 7 Euro. The day and time of delivery may be
chosen by the client at the time of order. Caddy-Home immediately confirms

if there is still place in the desired delivery round. If it is not the case, the
customer is requested to select another delivery time. Caddy-Home
organises four delivery rounds on week days (9 a.m. to 12 a.m., 12 a.m. to 2
p.m., 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.) and two delivery
rounds on Saturdays (9 a.m. to 12 a.m. and 12 a.m. to 2 p.m.). Returnable
bottles bought at Caddy-Home are collected on the next delivery
Payment is made to the delivery man by cash, check, bank card or lunch
vouchers (private customer) or by cash or check (companies) respectively.
Companies that wish to do so may request to receive invoices to be paid
within the following 8 days.
A new service called “take ‘n go” has just been set up. To use this service
one also needs to have a client number and a password. Orders may be
made via Internet, by telephone, or by fax before 10 a.m. The prepared
order may be retrieved between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the centre of Brussels,
next to the new “Manhattan” Delhaize City. A “short time parking” has been
organised to facilitate pick-up of orders.
Results and Caddy-Home is used by around 400 clients per day. The online-shop’s
experiences
turnover grew from 8.8 million Euro in 1999 to 10.8 million Euro in 2000.
However, it is not known whether the business is profitable or not. Its effects
on urban freight or passenger transport have not been assessed.
More information www.caddyhome.be

Nathalie Van Isacker, STRATEC

Example 3.7: Example 3.7: LeShop (Switzerland)

Switzerland
[Glücker; 2001; Egger; 2001; www.leshop.ch]
Key words online supermarket, no brick-and-mortar shops affiliated, targeting

working parents, insulated bags for fresh products, dedicated
warehouse, time-slot delivery, non-timed delivery, delivery to
neighbours
Reasons, framework LeShop was the first online grocery service to be established in Switzerland
conditions and
objectives
and is still the only online-supermarket in Switzerland without affiliated brick-
and-mortar shops. The service is targeted to working people, especially
women, who have to manage both family and job.
LeShop.ch aims to establish itself as the No. 1 Swiss online food market by
adapting its service offering to customer needs, expanding its product
range, ensuring top quality standards for all products and services,
upgrading its web-site functionality and systematically implementing its one-
to-one marketing concept.
LeShop went online in April 1998. Today it is part of the Bon appétit group.
LeShop delivers throughout Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Approach LeShop offers over 4500 products to meet daily requirements including
fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and dairy food as well as non-food. The
prices of the products are comparable to the ones at brick-and-mortar shops
with a similar selection. However, the focus is on rather expensive high-
quality products with high margins. [Metzger; 2001] The ordered products
are delivered to the customer’s home (or any other address specified)
throughout whole Switzerland and Liechtenstein by the logistics partner, the
Swiss post parcel service. There is a flat fee of 8 Euro per delivery. All
products are carefully packed in paper bags. Temperature-sensitive fresh
products are kept cool by insulated bags. For these a deposit of 3 Euro per
order is charged which will be credited to the customers account when
returning the bags. The paper and insulated bags are transported in padded
plastic boxes which the postman takes with him after delivering the order
(see Figure 13).
Figure 13: Shipping boxes (“Dispoboxes”) [www.leshop.ch]
For major Swiss cities (Aarau, Basel, Berne, Frauenfeld, Geneva,

Lausanne, Lucerne, St-Gall, Winterthur, Zug and Zurich) there is an express
night delivery service: all orders placed on Sundays through Thursdays
before midnight are delivered the following day between 5:30 p.m. and 8:00
p.m. Orders placed on Friday before 4:30 p.m. are delivered on Saturday
morning. For other areas of Switzerland all orders placed on Monday
through Friday before 4:30 p.m. are delivered the next working day between
07:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. (including Saturday).
If the customer is not at home at the time of delivery the goods are
proceeded according to the customer’s specifications made at the time of
ordering. The postman then:
• leaves the goods at the front door
• leaves the goods with a particular neighbour
• returns the goods to the post office where they can be collected (during
regular opening hours)
Figure 14: LeShop products are delivered by the postman

[www.leshop.ch]
With rising turnovers the logistics challenges have become more and more
complex. LeShop have therefore decided to take care of this important part
of the value chain themselves. Since August 2001 all logistics operations
are concentrated in the new logistics centre in Bremgarten. The centre is
operated by 30 employees working weekdays from 06:00 a.m. to 10:00
p.m.. It is served by 60 suppliers, whereof 11 deliver daily (fresh products
such as fruit, cheese, meat). Over 4500 different products are stored on
2 2
1600 m (chilled) or 4200 m (ambient) respectively. Each day 200-400
orders are processed, resulting in 9 tons of products in 800-1600 of the
yellow delivery boxes being delivered everywhere in the country. 80% of the
orders are delivered using the express service. The logistics centre is
especially designed for the needs of an online grocery supermarket. All
products are sorted by shelf turnover, packing sequence and requirements.
The single-pick storage system enables LeShop to select and place each
product in the shipping boxes individually. This manual work is supported by
automated processes: first the system auto-distributes the incoming orders
to packing zones. Instead of warehouse staff walking through the aisles with
shopping trolleys, the shipping box makes its way to the appropriate packing
zones via 700 metres of conveyor belts (see Figure 15). In this way,
LeShop.ch packers process an order simultaneously at different positions,
so that products are boxed up more quickly. Thus the design of the entire
logistics centre is geared to the needs and buying habits of the customers
LeShop’s main target group are young families and working mothers. The
company’s partnership with The association of the Swiss Business
Professional Women BPW aims at intensifying this focus.
Figure 15: Picking process using conveyor belts in LeShop’s

dedicated warehouse [www.leshop.ch]
Results and LeShop started in 1998 with 7 employees. In April 2001 the total number of
experiences
staff was 40 people. 16’000 customers have shopped at least once with
LeShop so far. Today, 76% of all purchases are made by regular clients,
mainly for their planned weekly shopping. LeShop handles 200 to 400
purchases per day, mostly on Mondays. Average shopping basket value is
around 100 Euro. LeShop received several awards as best e-commerce site
in 1998 and 1999.
Whereas total turnover in 2000 was 4.5 million Euro, this figure is probably
almost going to double in 2001 (3.7 million Euro in the first semester).
However, total sales have to reach around 50 millions for the business to be
profitable. [NZZ; 2001] Whether this can be achieved within the planned
next years depends mainly on customer acceptance and on competitors.
More information www.leshop.ch

Claudia Glücker, Dieter Egger, RAPP AG

Example 3.8: Example 3.8: MIGROS-Shop (Switzerland)

Switzerland
[Glücker; 2001; Egger; 2001]
Key words Online supermarket, price differentiation, ecological concerns, electric

bicycles
Reasons, framework The MIGROS-Shop is the online supermarket of MIGROS, the biggest
conditions and
objectives
supermarket chain in Switzerland. The whole MIGROS co-operative
includes not only supermarkets but also gas stations, banks, insurance,
travel offices, etc. The MIGROS-shop online initiative was started in 1998
as a (small) complementary part of the brick-and-mortar business.
Approach The MIGROS-online shop offers around 4000 articles including food from
the whole range of goods in traditional MIGROS supermarkets. Prices are
identical with the ones in the brick-and-mortar outlets. The goods ordered by
Internet are delivered or can be picked up at the bigger supermarket outlets.
The delivery service is restricted to confined regions within Switzerland. All
goods are delivered from the MIGROS-shop centre in Schönbühl. The
goods are delivered in reusable boxes that are taken back immediately after
delivery. Orders made before 10 a.m. are delivered the same day,
otherwise the next working day. The customer can choose between two
delivery services:
• Standard delivery service: Delivery within time-slots, either 16:00-17:30
or 17:30-19:00 (at the customer’s choice).
• De Luxe delivery service: Delivery on appointment, any specified time
between 16:00 and 22:00.
The fees vary according to the chosen service and the ordered amount:
• Picking-up the goods at a specified supermarket: free of charge
• Standard delivery service: 10 Euro for total orders below 130 Euro, and
8 Euro for orders above 130 Euro
• De Luxe delivery service: Flat rate of 23 Euro.
Payment is possible by Credit Card or PostCard. If the customer is not at
home during delivery the goods are left in front of the door at the customer’s
full responsibility. In residential blocks the goods are generally delivered up
to the main front door, but exceptions can be arranged.
Results and There is no information available about the economic success of the
experiences
initiative. The company is aware that “the current distribution concept and
the increase of small quantities cause more traffic.” [MIOSPHERE; 2001] “In
order to improve the negative ecological effects of transport” [MIOSPHERE;
2001] and to green the company’s image an optimisation of the distribution
concept is currently undertaken. As the new concept is still under
construction access to information is restricted. The new distribution concept
will “enforce the use of pick-up-points which are easily accessible (e.g.
MIGROS gas stations, railway stations, airports, big companies, etc.). ...
The main goal is to avoid as many client-trips to the shopping centres as
possible and to avoid an increase of traffic in general.” [MIOSPHERE; 2001]
It is possible that the new concept will even include the “Service Porteur”, a
service, which has been tested recently in a small scale pilot, offering home
delivery by electric bike and trailer for goods bought conventionally at the
supermarkets (see Figure 16).
Figure 16: Bike trailer for home-delivery by the “Service Porteur”
More information www.migros-shop.ch

Claudia Glücker, Dieter Egger, RAPP AG

Example 3.9: Example 3.9: PAD Nanterre (Nanterre)

Nanterre
[Dablanc; 2001]
Key words Home delivery and taxi service, offline ordering, depends strongly on
public subsidies
Reasons, framework The Nanterre Portage et Accompagnement à Domicile (PAD, i.e. Home
conditions and
objectives
Delivery and taxi service) was the first of PAD projects throughout French
Cities (including Paris) and the largest so far (number of shop keepers
associated and number of deliveries made). The public-private experiment
has started in 1998 and should continue if more subsidies are found. It is
financed by its members (20% of the budget) and by the Ministry of
Transport and other public and private sources (National Research Program
on Urban Goods). It was initiated by Mr. Creuzet, the President of the
Nanterre Association of local retailers and craftsmen because the traditional
city centre shops were losing customers and because there was a strong
environmental need to decrease shopping trips by private car. The projects
is operating in the city-centre of Nanterre, a city with 100'
000 inhabitants in
the Paris region.
Approach 150 shopkeepers are member of the Nanterre PAD experiment. The project
employs 6 persons who pick-up the goods purchased at PAD member shops
and deliver them to the customer’s home. Goods are either bought by
physical visits in the shop or ordered by phone. For example a customer
calls a liquor store which is a member of PAD. He orders 10 bottles of wine
to be delivered within the next hour. The wine merchant will then call the
PAD centre and ask for a delivery service. The PAD employee comes with
an electric motorcycle or an electric car, picks up the wine box and delivers
it to the customer. The customer is charged 1.5 Euro per delivery. The PAD
centre centralises all demands and tries to organise a delivery tour in order
to rationalise the use of their vehicles. However, as they have committed
themselves to delivery within one hour they often cannot wait for a tour to
1
be completed. Ordering by Internet is planned but not possible yet.
Customers can also ask for a taxi service, i.e. a ride. A car then picks up the
customer at his home and takes him to a shop or another service provider
such as a hair dresser, etc. Shop keepers pay for part of that service, their
1
The Nanterre PAD project is therefore not exactly an e-commerce example. It is nevertheless described as it deals with the last mile
delivery problem.
customer so far do not pay anything.
Results and The PAD centre executes around 100 deliveries and 20 rides a day. This is
experiences
considered a success. However, financially, the PAD does not manage to be
profitable without public subsidies. According to the initiator, Mr. Creuzet, "a
PAD will always need at least a 25% subsidy rate from the public sector",
and it is an environmental choice to be made by environmentally concerned
municipalities. However, the environmental impact of the Nanterre PAD
experiment are not obvious and is therefore being evaluated. There are no
results available yet.
More information AVEC

9 rue Henri Barbusse
92 000 NANTERRE, France
Pat.nicolas@France-commerce.net

Laetitia Dablanc, GART

Example 3.10: Example 3.10: ServiceLog (Switzerland)

Switzerland
[Glücker; 2001;Swiss Post; 2001]
Key words B2B e-commerce, sending and exchanging faulty equipment
Reasons, framework ServiceLog is a logistic solution of the Swiss Post’s parcel service. The
conditions and
objectives
Swiss Post currently has 3500 post offices nation-wide with 55' 000
employees. On average about 600' 000 parcels are processed every day.
ServiceLog offers logistics solutions for sending and exchanging faulty
equipment to companies in the computer, electronics, telecommunications
and related sectors and their customers respectively.
Approach With ServiceLog the whole repair process, from receiving the faulty
equipment to sending it out following repair, can be completed in just a few
days. Items are sent via the quick PostPac Priority service.
A possible example of the proceedings is given on the next page (Figure
17).
There are different options depending on whether the company uses their
own containers or the so called “Dispoboxes” of the Swiss Post, whether the
faulty equipment is collected at the customer’s home or deposited at the
nearest post office, etc. It is also possible to have a spare equipment
delivered to the customer (when collecting the faulty one) and collect it
again (when delivering the repaired one). Other services such as Call
Centre are available for an additional charge. There is a minimum quantity
of 1000 orders per year.
Results and The ServiceLog service is currently used by 18 companies. The project was
experiences
awarded by the Swiss Association for Logistics as one of the best logistic
solutions of the year 2000. However, there is no information available on the
impact on urban freight.
More information http://www.post.ch/e/parcel_post/gk_loe_servicelog.html

Claudia Glücker, RAPP AG

The customer calls to say a piece of equipment is faulty.

The company notifies the ServiceLog centre by mail.
The postman is sent to the customer’s home with an

empty container.
At the customer’s home the postman packs the faulty

equipment into the container.
ServiceLog delivers the container to the company for

repair.
The repaired equipment is handed back to ServiceLog in

the same packaging for the return journey.
The postman delivers the parcel to the customer.
The postman hands the repaired equipment over to the

customer.
The empty container is returned to the ServiceLog

centre.
Figure 17: The ServiceLog process [Swiss Post; 2001]

3.4 The logistics of online-shopping solutions
Integrating data Online-retailer should aim at implementing an IT-architecture that enables a

flows
real-time integration of the various systems of his business partners. If the
online-order of a toy for 25 Euro is to trigger a just-in-time order at the
wholesaler’s plus instructions for wrapping it in gift paper at the distributor’s
plus an order at the parcel service, this can only be profitable within fully
integrated systems. Also tracking & tracing as well as complaint
management require integrated solutions. Demand peaks (such as
Christmas shopping in the toy industry) would cause the breakdown of a
manual system. [Schubert et al.; 2001]
2 logistics models With online-shopping business models two logistic models for assembly are
for assembly
observed (see Figure 18 and Figure 19):
• locating logistics operations at existing stores (shelf-picking)
• locating logistic operations at dedicated centres which are especially
designed for e-commerce operations (e.g. using conveyor belts, storage
according to buying frequency, packing order and storage needs).
Figure 18: Store-based picking model [Browne; 2001]

Figure 19: Dedicated picking centre model [Browne; 2001]
Shelf-picking is chosen by many retail stores which try to expand their brick-
and-mortar business into the online world (low investment costs). As the
online business grows they tend to switch to the dedicated picking model
which offers potentials for efficiency gains but needs a high sales volume to
cover the higher investment costs (see Example 3.7: LeShop). Similarly,
there is a tendency to integrate logistics as the online turnover grows,
whereas start-ups often outsource logistics to third party logistics
companies. If the percentage of Internet shoppers is to increase in future the
companies will need to adapt their distribution concepts to the demands of
their online clients.
Last mile solutions Apart from the chosen logistics model for assembly the solution of the last
mile delivery to the consumer is crucial for online shopping business models
and a key factor to economic success. A recent study in Paris showed that
one of the main reasons for customers for not using e-commerce and the
subsequent home delivery is that it takes too long and keeps you waiting at
home. [CREDOC; 2001] There are several possibilities to address this
problem, each with its specific Pros and Cons:
Non-timed delivery When the goods are delivered without appointment or a fixed time window
the consumer is often not present at delivery. This creates two main
problems, a legal and a logistic one. First, there is nobody to sign for the
reception of the delivered goods which could result in legal problems.
Second, facilities for storing the goods are needed. They must be accessible
for the delivery company but nevertheless be secure against theft.
Furthermore, in the case of groceries being delivered, different storage
temperatures might be necessary (e.g. so called 3 climate storage
compartments: ambient, chilled and frozen; see Example 3.3: Internet
House). Another solution is chosen by the Swiss online supermarket LeShop

(see Example 3.7): if the customer is not at home at the time of delivery the
goods are delivered to a previously specified neighbour. Other consumers
prefer to have the goods left unattended in front of their door - at their own
risk of course. For smaller items such as books or CDs (still the online best-
sellers) Swiss letterboxes dispose of a bigger extra compartment, the so
called “milkbox”. These compartments are not locked, but apparently theft is
not a problem so far.
Although non-timed delivery comes along with various problems it allows
delivery companies to optimise transport routes and schedules, thereby
reducing overall traffic and achieving better vehicle and driver productivity
for each unit delivered. Two studies in the UK modelling a home delivery
service found that vehicle kilometres for trips previously made by now home
shoppers could be reduced by around 80%, even if each delivery van only
carried eight loads of shopping. [Cairns and Farahmand/Young quoted in
Browne; 2001]
Delivery by To avoid the consumer-at-home problem some companies deliver by

appointment
appointment. However, this advantage is traded against a loss of efficiency,
as it is difficult to set up efficient delivery tours. In the worst case there is a
single delivery trip for each order, thus private shopping trips are just
replaced by reversed commercial delivery trips.
Time-slot delivery Time-slots try to combine the advantages of both non-timed delivery and
delivery by appointment respectively. However, capacity problems might
occur as there are apparently preferred time windows. As shown by Figure
20 most consumers prefer their products being delivered on weekdays
between 8-10 p.m.. This is also peak parking hour in residential areas,
creating additional delivery problems.
80
60
40
20
y
8
da
a
-0
-1
-1
-1
-2
-2
nd
06
08
12
16
18
20
r
tu
Su
Sa
ys
ys
ys
ys
ys
ys
a
a
kd
kd
kd
kd
kd
kd
ee
ee
ee
ee
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W
W
Figure 20: When people want their products delivered
[Hultkranz / Lumsden; 2000]
Workplace delivery Delivery to the workplace solves the problem of the presence of a receiver,
but it might create storage problems at the office, especially for frozen and
chilled goods and even more with increasing popularity. With regard to
transport patterns workplace delivery transfers the last mile distribution
problem to the work-home journey. This might influence the modal choice of
workers, as they might go to work by car instead of public transport in order
to take the delivered goods to their homes.
Delivery to pick-up The delivery to pick-up points where the consumer comes to pick up his
points
goods after notification of arrival offers several advantages with respect to
the above mentioned problems. The goods are centrally delivered and can
be consolidated. Delivery can be at any time of the day. Also for picking up
there is usually a large time window, if not 24 hours. Pick-up points
guarantee secure storage under stable temperature conditions. Pick-up
points can be dedicated local urban delivery centres (see Example 3.4:
Tower24) or use existing infrastructure such as petrol stations (see Example
3.1: RelayStar), local stores, park & ride sites, leisure facilities, schools, rail
stations, etc. (see Example 3.2: PickPoint AG). The different solutions also
have different characteristics and implications on transport pattern. Pick-up
points which combine the activity of picking up the ordered goods with an
existing activity or trip offer a potential to reduce overall traffic, although
they might shift the modal choice of these activities towards private cars.
This is especially true for car oriented solutions such as gas stations, which
are attractive for motorised citizens only. The picture is different where the
goods are picked up at retail stores or at dedicated pick-up centres. These
solutions offer no or less potential to reduce traffic as their main customer
service is not delivery but product assembly and flexible opening hours.
They could only contribute to traffic reduction if different orders at different
retailers are assembled at the pick-up point, i.e. if the consumer’s single trip
to the pick-up point would replace several shopping trips to different stores.
Extra challenge: A particular challenge are the logistics of food delivery, especially when it
food delivery
comes to fresh products such as meat or dairy food that need constant
cooling. An active cooling chain (delivery vehicle with freezing
compartment) allows longer transport trips and fully supports frozen goods,
but it requires high investment costs and is usually not offered by the
general logistics and transport companies. That’s why many online food-
retailers use insulated containers instead (passive cooling chain) in spite of
the inconveniences: transport times are limited, the containers require
reverse logistics, the insulation takes extra space and frozen goods can only
be transported within limits.
Also on the receiver’s side special infrastructure is required for storing the
goods under the necessary temperature conditions, whether it is at pick-up
points (see Example 3.4: Tower24) or at the consumer’s home when he is
absent (see Example 3.3: Internet House).
Return flows Reverse logistics in order to handle return flows are often neglected. Fear of
damaged goods and the according return hassles can be a major inhibitor
for consumers to shop online. [CREDOC; 2001] Without proper organisation
they can create a lot of inefficient transports and upset customers.
Delivery fees and Delivery fees are often not covering the actual logistic costs as companies
transport efficiency
are afraid of repelling new customers by high delivery fees. The problem is
related to the still limited online sales. For acceptable delivery costs and
prices the volume and the number of deliveries have to attain a certain
threshold. Still, the costs associated with order picking and home delivery
are not new costs. It is rather that these activities and costs are transferred
from the customer to the e-commerce company. In fact, it may well be the
case that order picking and transport costs are lower when performed by an
e-commerce company than when carried out by the consumer (especially
when taking into account the customer’s value of time). The concern for the
companies is whether the customer is willing to pay a price that fully covers
the costs of these activities. Without appropriate delivery charges that also
reflect the quantity ordered and the speed of fulfilment there may well be a
rapid increase in vehicle trips involving the delivery of minimal quantities of

goods. [Browne; 2001] In fact, in times of the “polluter pays”-principle and
road pricing flat delivery rates look like an anachronism. With a future
increase in e-commerce activities customers will react more sensitively on
delivery prices. Prices should therefore be used as a demand management
tool to bundle orders and increase transport efficiency (see Example 3.8:
MIGROS-shop).
Sensitive residential Home delivery usually takes place in sensitive residential areas. Companies
areas
could work together to consolidate deliveries for particular streets or areas,
thereby improving vehicle load factors, increasing drop densities and
reducing the number of vehicles. This would benefit the company (higher
efficiency), the customer (lower delivery costs) as well as the other residents
(less traffic). Furthermore, co-operative delivery systems for consolidation
among various companies would also solve the inconvenience to the
consumer when disturbed by several deliveries a day. However,
experiences with City Logistic concepts and other co-operation approaches
suggest that such a collaboration is tricky and might cause problems of
logistics, cost accounting and distribution among the partners.
Opportunities and E-commerce has strong impacts on the transport service industry:
risks for logistic
service providers • Change in demand patterns
• New opportunities for efficiency gains
• Rising importance of logistics within the value chain
E-commerce business solutions require different logistics than traditional
businesses, from Just-In-Time orders with smaller consignments at higher
frequencies to home delivery services with dedicated e-fulfilment centres.
On the other hand e-commerce offers the opportunity to realise efficiency
gains through closer collaboration between logistics service providers and
their clients as well as among the logistics companies themselves.
Finally, logistics become a key factor of success for e-commerce business
models, even more than with traditional businesses. This gives logistics
service providers a strong position and the chances to increase their share
of the value chain. E-commerce requires high quality logistics which are
only possible through close collaboration. This offers the opportunity to
escape the fierce price competition by establishing long-term contracts and
business relations. However, with logistics becoming a core business in the
value chain e-retailers will try to integrate logistics into their own business in
order to keep control of this important process. Nevertheless, the existing
know-how of logistics service providers will be needed and appreciated.
A chance for From the above said e-commerce is rather a chance than a threat to logistic
innovative logistic
service providers
service providers. Particularly in the light of the fierce competition among
logistic companies innovative actors can distinguish themselves from their
competitors by adapting to the new needs of the e-economy and by making
efficient use of the hereby offered opportunities. Because the new
economy’s logistics are very complex they are difficult to imitate for
competitors. The established market advantages of the innovators will
therefore be quite sustainable. [Schubert et al.; 2001]
3.5 Possible effects on urban freight and passenger transport
B2B e-commerce: The importance of B2B e-commerce is estimated to grow further in the
general impacts on
transport
future. Figure 21 gives an overview on its possible main impacts on
passenger and goods transports. With regard to freight transports 3 effects
are dominating:
• Close horizontal and vertical collaboration leads to real-time demand
and just-in-time logistics. Business clients make their orders at shorter
notice and more frequently, nonetheless expecting punctual deliveries.
This makes bundling of deliveries more difficult. Smaller consignment
sizes are delivered more frequently.
• Global procurement and collaboration leads to larger transport distances
and an increase in especially air freight.
• The emergence of supply chain communities and e-based platforms for
logistics (e.g. transport exchanges) could lead to greater transparency
which would increase competition and offer opportunities to consolidate
orders and enhance vehicle capacity utilisation. Traffic volume and
freight costs could be reduced.
Whereas the first two effects induce more freight transport, the third could
reduce it through rationalisation and efficiency gains. With special attention
to urban freight transports the first and the third effect are of particular
importance, i.e. transport induction through demand for JIT-logistics versus
efficiency gains through e-collaboration. Which effect will overweigh in the
end is hard to predict. The mentioned problems with regard to collaboration
between logistics service providers however indicate that at least in the
short-term the transport inducing mechanisms will be dominating. B2B e-
commerce does have an impact on urban freight distribution if at least one
of the trading companies is located in an urban area. Still, the potential for
overthrowing existing urban transport patterns of B2C-e-commerce is
estimated to be much higher.
Figure 21: Impacts of business-to-business E-commerce on transport volumes
B2B E-commerce
Globalization Just-In-Time logistics
• International • Global supply and • Smaller • Transport

• Tele-consulting division of labour distribution consignemts exchanges
• E-Mail • Multi-site markets • Higher distribution • Improvements in
• Video-conference companies • Larger distances frequencies capacitiy
• etc. • Spatial expansion (esp. air freight) • LTF-truckloads utilisation and trip
of networks • Restructuring of • Smaller vehicles planning
through global logistics and • etc. • Bundling of
alliances and co- transport networks transports
operation • sites • etc.
• etc. • etc.
- + + + -
Effects on passenger transport Effects on freight transport
Affecting URBAN FREIGHT transport IF at least

one company is located in an urban area
B2C e-commerce: The logistics of B2C-e-commerce are characterised by the following

general impacts on
transport
particularities:
• Online-shopping is not constrained to local areas. Global shopping
increases transport distances and mileage.
• Single orders reduce consignment sizes
• Generally the orders are executed at once thereby increasing delivery
frequency
• Several individual shopping trips can be replaced by a single delivery
trip by van
Whereas the first three effects forecast an increase in urban freight traffic,
the latter offers considerable potential for total mileage reduction.
Several influencing The net effect is not clear at all, as the transport reduction potential depends
factors
on several factors:
• ability to consolidate orders
• transport bundling capacities (collaboration among various deliverers)
• intelligent trip planning (immediate delivery, access restrictions, time
constraints, etc.)
• location of the distribution depot (dedicated warehouse, store)
Furthermore it is expected that consumers will substitute their former

shopping trips by possibly even longer leisure trips. Experts forecast that
this traffic inducing effect might easily outweigh the whole transport
reduction potential and that e-commerce will increase the total number of
vehicle movements. [Schacke; 2001] Delivery to workplaces or pick-up
points where the very last mile distribution is done by a regular consumer’s
journey might also influence the consumer’s modal choice adversely.
More traffic due to e- It is impossible to give a general statement about the impact of online-
commerce ?
shopping on urban transport volumes. A wide variety of different logistic
solutions have been implemented, each of them having different effects.
Transport patterns differ strongly between new or existing logistic channels
or between home delivery services and pick-up point solutions. Two
identical online shopping models differing only in the location of their pick-
up points (e.g. dedicated pick-up centre versus railway station) will have
different impacts on transport mileage. Table 2 sketches a picture of the
variety and complexity of the different impacts.
Table 2: Different logistic solutions for various online-shopping models and their impact on
transport volumes
General trend
E-commerce reinforces the general trend in logistics towards smaller consignments, single orders and
thus higher delivery frequency
Logistic models transport increasing factors transport reducing factors
+ -
Use of existing logistic channels + larger distances and higher − better bundling and trip
(Parcel service, post) mileage due to global optimisation thanks to large
shopping and single order volumes of goods
processing
New logistic channel: + only restricted bundling − shorter distances for last
shelf picking possibilities mile distribution (making it
possible to deliver e.g. by
bike)
New logistic channel: + higher freight mileage − better consolidation and trip
dedicated warehouse because new distribution optimisation
centre has to be served
+ possibly large distances to
pick-up points and homes
distribution to pick-up points + higher freight mileage due to − replacement of shopping
(including workplace) high number of pick-up trips if pick-up point is at a
points location regularly visited
anyhow (e.g. workplace)
+ possible influence on modal
choice (might use car for − better consolidation and
work-journey instead of bundling if delivered to
public transport) central pick-up points
+ consumers might substitute − trip optimisation as delivery
former shopping trips by can be at any time of the
other (longer) journeys day
− assembly of different orders
at the pick-up point
(replacing a number of
single shopping trips)
home delivery + higher freight mileage − replacement of individual
(replacing shopping trips) shopping trips by bundled
goods transports
+ consumers might substitute
former shopping trips by − potential in overall traffic
other (longer) journeys reduction depends on ability
to bundle transports, set up
+ reverse logistics efficient delivery trips and
make full use of vehicle
capacity (time constraints,

etc.).
There could be a net benefit for the public, i.e. less traffic, if a high level of
freight vehicle utilisation can be achieved and if former private shopping
trips are not substituted with other car-related activities. There has been no
study so far assessing all the above mentioned effects quantitatively.
Furthermore, it is not clear, which logistics solution has got the highest
potential for traffic reduction. Still, experts forecast an increase in overall
(urban) traffic, [Vastag; 2001] mainly because of substitution effects. Even
the e-commerce companies themselves are aware that online-shopping
concepts can increase traffic, depending on their design. MIGROS, online
retailer and one of the most important supermarket chains in Switzerland
admits: “The current distribution concept and the increase of small
quantities cause more traffic. The further development of the MIGROS-
Online-Shops will include an optimisation of logistics. (...) The main goal is
to avoid as many client-trips to the shopping centres as possible and to
avoid an increase of traffic in general.” [MIOSPHERE; 2001]
The key question is, whether the online-shopping market will grow to such
an extent that the delivery density will be high enough to make the average
trip length per delivery substantially shorter than the corresponding private
shopping trip. However, the future development of the online-shopping
market is hard to predict.
Future development Whether online-shopping models become a widespread success depends

hard to predict
on marketing factors such as consumer habits, technical factors such as
electronic payment facilities and last but not least on intelligent and cost
efficient delivery solutions, particularly for the “last mile” delivery to the
customer. An Ernst & Young study on online retailing puts it like this:
“Shipping costs are the biggest concern for online-buyers; it ranks as the
number one factor discouraging online buying and the number-one reason
for abandoning a shopping cart”. [Ernst & Young; 2001]. At the same time
consumers get more time-sensitive as they expect the delivery being as
immediate as their ordering in the Internet. In other words: innovative
logistic concepts are key drivers for the success of B2C e-commerce. On
the other hand, the design of these logistic concepts depends again on the
development of the online shopping activities themselves. An increase in
Internet shopping activities will require other logistic solutions than today’s
level of home shopping. Logistics and e-commerce form a full circle, each
triggering the other’s development (see Figure 22). This interdependence is
one of the main factors complicating the prediction of future e-commerce
development.
B2C e-commerce Logistics

Figure 22: Interdependence of B2C e-commerce and logistics
Additionally, the future of online-shops depends heavily on the reaction of

the brick-and-mortar shops towards this new competitors. Traditional shops
will have to play all their trump cards such as entertainment shopping, high
level advice, personal contact, etc. in order to stabilise and enhance their
customer relationship. The recent trend towards retail stores which combine
shopping with video watching, reading, having coffee or surfing the Internet
can be seen as a reaction to the competition emerging from e-commerce.
How ever the competition evolves in detail, the question is not whether e-
commerce will grow, but rather up to which level.
3.6 Conclusions and recommendations
3.6.1 Conclusions
Small but fast Although B2C e-commerce still accounts for a very small market share
growing market
compared to conventional retail business, the online shopping market is
growing very fast. It is heavily pushed by its actors, but so far economically
sustainable example are scarce. In this high potential market efficient and
reliable logistics are one of the main factors of success.
Trade-off between There are different logistic approaches used, differing in customer service
customer service
and distribution
quality as well as in transport efficiency. Therefore the Internet shops have
efficiency to find the balance between comfort for their clients (customer service
quality) and efficiency of the distribution process.
Two assembly On the level of assembly two logistic models are observed:
models
• locating logistic operations at existing stores (shelf-picking)
• locating logistic operations at dedicated centres which are especially
designed for e-commerce operations (dedicated warehouse picking
using conveyor belts, storage according to buying frequency, packing
order and storage needs, etc.).
Last mile delivery For the delivery on the last mile there is a trade-off between customer
service and efficient delivery tours:
• Non-timed home delivery and the delivery to pick-up points allow the
setting up of more efficient delivery trips but are less consumer friendly
than delivery on appointment
• Time-slot delivery is a common approach for balancing the two
extremes
• From the city transport planning view it is rather undesirable that pick-up
points and delivery depots are often car-oriented (gas stations, etc.)
• Delivery depots and dedicated pick-up and delivery centres additionally
allow the bundling of goods.
Consumer-at-home The problem of the consumer not being at home at the time of delivery is
problem
tackled in various ways:
• delivering on appointment
• defining time-slots for delivery
• delivering to pick-up points
• equipping (new) houses with special storage infrastructure
Demanding logistics Efficient and reliable logistics are a key factor for the economic success of
online-shopping. But the logistics of online-shops are very demanding. The
following particularities have been identified:
• Food delivery: The delivery of fresh products requires special measures
for cooling during the delivery process as well as on the receiver’s side
(at pick-up points or at the consumer’s home when he is absent).
• Reverse logistics: Logistics for handling return flows are often
neglected, although the fear of return hassles can be a major inhibitor
for consumers to shop online.
• Delivery fees: Delivery fees are far from reflecting actual delivery costs
(still small volumes, barrier to customer acceptance, etc.). Differentiated
delivery tariffs mirroring the quantity ordered and the speed of fulfilment
could help in bundling the orders and increasing transport efficiency.
An opportunity for E-commerce is rather a chance than a threat to logistic service providers.
logistics service
providers
Particularly in the light of the fierce competition among logistic companies
innovative actors can distinguish themselves from their competitors by
adapting to the new needs of the e-economy and by making efficient use of
the hereby offered opportunities.
Influence of Product-related legislation and vehicle operating legislation on international,

(e-commerce
related) legislation
national and local level influence the development of e-commerce,
especially on certain distribution channels and systems, e.g. [Browne;
2000].:
• Time at which deliveries can be made (both in terms of vehicle access
to the street concerned and unloading regulations in force on the street,
e.g. night deliveries)
• Times at which customers are permitted to visit pick-up points to collect
their goods
• Size and/or weight of vehicles that can be used to make these deliveries
• Special legislation concerning contracts of sales or liability

• Data protection
• Food legislation (Packaging, temperature control, etc.)
Insufficient As online-shopping usually implies the delivery of goods, the growing e-

knowledge about the
impacts on urban
commerce market has substantial effects on urban transport, both on freight
transport transport, on business transport, on shopping transport and on leisure
transport. The complex impacts depend on a number of factors:
• Logistics model
• Location of distribution centres, delivery points, etc.
• Consignment sizes
• Market volume
• Bundling degree
• Vehicles used
• Substitution of former shopping trips
• etc.
The effects of e-commerce on urban transport are very complex and not
well understood. There is no general answer as every solution has to be
assessed under its own framework conditions. Nevertheless many countries
are pushing and promoting e-commerce activities - apparently without
having thoroughly assessed its effects. On the other hand, cities and regions
are still not aware of the chances and risks of e-commerce.
3.6.2 Recommendations
Challenging the It might well be that e-commerce leads to an increase in urban freight
urban municipalities
transport that is not offset by an equal reduction in passenger transport.
Such a rise in urban traffic would raise several problems for the concerned
municipalities. These can be tackled by known economic and regulatory
instruments such as vehicle and time restrictions, unloading spaces,
environmental taxes, etc.. However, as e-commerce is only in its infancy a
prospective approach must focus on preventive measures. From the public,
i.e. ecological and town planning view some logistics solutions might be
more attractive than others because they offer a higher potential for
transport reduction and customer service. However, it is not known yet

which ones. The municipalities have the instruments at hand (regulations,
economic framework conditions, town planning) to support the development
of the preferable ones. But as long as the main effects and relations are not
well understood (see below) they should not interfere in market
mechanisms.
Recommendations It is therefore recommended that the cities and regions monitor closely the
on city level
development of e-commerce activities. Furthermore, they should participate
in the suggested research activities on national and international level in
order to identify chances and risks for urban areas due to e-commerce and
to elaborate appropriate measures and framework conditions.
Knowledge gaps The present study has drawn a sketch of the different logistics models of
existing e-commerce solutions and their possible impact on urban transport.
As many actors in this new business do not reveal their pioneer know-how
the material collection has to stay incomplete. Several knowledge gaps can
be identified:
• Different B2C e-commerce logistic solutions and their various effects on
urban transport patterns
• How to make full use of the rationalisation potential within e-logistics
• The specific needs of B2C e-commerce logistics
Whereas for the last topic there is probably considerable know-how
available among online-shopping companies (although not publicly
available), there is particularly little knowledge about the first two which
focus mainly on traffic reduction, i.e. a topic of rather public interest. From
the urban transport point of view it is especially the first topic that urges for
further research.
Unclear impacts of There are many different solutions to the logistic challenges of online-
e-commerce on
urban transport
shopping concepts. Those solutions have different impacts on urban
transport in general and particularly on the urban ecological system and the
citizens’ quality of life. Yet, no quantitative assessment of the impacts of
different B2C solutions has been made so far. But if municipalities are to
actively prevent undesired developments and anticipate future problems
they need to know the pros and cons of the various solutions.
Recommendations Therefore, it is strongly recommended that further European and national

on national and
international level
research programmes investigate the following topics (in this order of
priority):
• Analysis of the potential effects of e-commerce (particularly online-
shopping) and its different logistic solutions on urban transport (freight,
business, shopping, leisure). As the whole issue turned out very
complex and heterogeneous it is recommended to focus on particular
solutions (as “generic types”) and assess their effects (preferably
quantitatively).
• Identification of chances and risks for urban areas due to e-commerce
activities
• Elaboration of appropriate measures and framework conditions in order
to increase the positive effects and to minimise the negative ones (e.g.
road pricing, land use planning, infrastructure planning, etc.)
Identifying and analysing positive and negative impacts of e-commerce on
urban transport is especially urgent in view of many national initiatives
promoting and supporting e-commerce activities. Forthcoming research
activity on the E-economy and its transport consequences by the European
Union (Task 2.1.2/9 within the Competitive and Sustainable Growth
Programme, Key Action on Sustainable Mobility and Intermodality) might
hopefully further treat the issue. However, as the topic is very complex and
as national and local factors differ too, this will not be sufficient for a
thorough assessment of the issue.
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001
References and contact persons
REFERENCES AND CONTACT PERSONS
References
BESTUFS 2001 Deliverable D 4.3 First clustering www.bestufs.net

report
Bischofs, Christoph / Riemer, 2001 Business Case Study “Adorishop”: Presentation at the E-
Kai electrnoic ordering with delivery to Business Congress 2001
pick-up points at the orbit fair in Basel
(26.09.2001)
BCG (Boston Consulting 2000 E-commerce in Switzerland www.bcg.ch/publikationen

Group) /studien/ergebnis.asp
Browne, Michael 2000 E-commerce, freight distribution www.acea.be

and the truck industry (Discussion
paper for the 4th ACEA SAG
Meeting)
Browne, Michael 2001 Transport and local distribution Part of the proceedings of
a joint OECD/ECMT
(European Conference of
Ministers of Transport)
Seminar about “The
impact of E-Commerce
on Transport” held in
Paris 5/6 June 2001
Browne, Michael et al. 2001 Overview of home deliveries in the www.wmin.ac.uk/transpor

UK (a study for DTI) t/projects/homedel.htm
Colin, Jacques 2001 E-Commerce and logistics Part of the proceedings of

a joint OECD/ECMT
Paris 5/6 June 2001
COST 321 1998 Transport Research COST 321 - Office for Official
Urban Goods Transport (Final Publications of the
report of the action) European Communities
2 rue Mercie
L - 2985 Luxembourg
http://eur-op.eu.int
info.info@opoce.cec.be
CREDOC 2001 Livraison à domicile, le cas de Chamber of Commerce of

Paris et la petite couronne (Home Paris, DGCE,
delivery, the Paris case study) 27 Av. de Friedland
75008 Paris, France
ct 2000 Das intelligente Haus (The Article in the magazine ct

intelligent house) 15/2000
(www.heise.de/ct/00/15/1
32).
Dablanc Laetitia 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available

commerce
Dorner, Reinhard 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available

commerce
Dujardin, Jos 2001 Presentation held at the 4th www.bestufs.net -

BESTUFS-workshop in The Hague >workshops ->10-11 May
(NL) 2001 The Hague -
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p
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commerce
Eichner, Karsten 2001 Fleisch in der Kühlbox steht auch Article in the Frankfruter
im Sonnenstudio (Meat in cooling Allgemeine Zeitung,
boxes in sun-studios) 15.03.2001 (www.faz.de)
Ernst & Young 2000 Global Online Retailing http://www.ernst-

young.de/presse/e_comm
erce_studie.html
European Commission 2001 The e-Economy in Europe: Its http://eur-

potential impact on EU enterprises op.eu.int/general/en/s-
and policies ad.htm
Firth, Daniel 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available

commerce
Glücker, Claudia 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available

commerce
GSC Research 2001 Jeserich AG www.gsc-

research.de/data/Artikel/6
4.pdf
Heuer, Stefan 2001 Der Markt ist tot, es lebe der Markt Article in Swiss
newspaper CASH, orbit
special edition
(www.cash.ch)
Hultkrantz, Ola / Lumsden, 2000 E-commerce and Logistical Chalmers University of

Kenth Consequences Technology, Department
of Transportation &
Logistics, SE 412 96
Göteborg
ohz@mot.chalmers.se
Huschebeck, Marcel 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available

commerce
IML 2001 Homepage of the Fraunhofer www.iml.fhg.de

Institut für Materialfluss und
Logistik
Metzger, Daniel 2001 4 online-shops im Test Article in the Swiss

newspaper
Sonntagszeitung,
09.09.2001
(www.sonntgaszeitung.ch
)
MIOSPHERE 2001 no title http://www.miosphere.ch/

d/shopping/insert.php3?s
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Morgenpost 2000 Elektronisch leben: D-Netbox statt Article in the German

Kohleofen Newspaper Morgenpost
(http://morgenpost.berlin1
.de/archiv2000/000727/be
rlin/story165313.html)
Mortimer, Phil 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available

commerce
Nemoto, Toshinori et al. 2001 Impacts of Information and Faculty of Commerce and
Communication Technology on Mangaement,
Urban Logistics System Hitotsubashi University,
Naka, Kunitachi, Tokyo,
186-8601, Japan
cc00330@srv.cc.hit-
u.ac.jp
NZZ 2001 Zugänglichere Futterkrippen im Article in the Swiss

Internet newspaper Neue Zürcher
Zeitung (NZZ),
24.08.2001 (www.nzz.ch)
OECD 2001 B2C e-commerce statistics www.oecd.org ->e-

commerce ->statistics
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a joint OECD/ECMT
Paris 5/6 June 2001
Polzin, Dietmar 1999 Akteure einer elektronischen Article in German journal

Logistikbörse “Logistik Heute” 3/99
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commerce
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commerce
Schacke, Ivar 2001 Presentation held at the 4th Not public available
BESTUFS-workshop in The Hague
(NL)
Schubert, Petra et al. 2001 Fulfillment im E-Business Hanser Verlag, Munich

www.hanser.de
Swiss Post 2001 Homepage of the Swiss Post http://www.post.ch/e/parc

Parcel service el_post/gk_loe_servicelog
.html
Van Isacker, Nathalie 2001 BESTUFS Material collection on E- Not public available
commerce
Vastag, Alex 2001 Auswirkungen moderner IuK- Fraunhofer Institut für

Technologien auf das Materialfluss und Logistik,
Verkehrsaufkommen (Contribution Dortmund, Germany
to the 4th Swiss Forum on
Transport & Traffic, 31.5.2001,
Zurich, Switzerland)
Contact persons: BESTUFS contractors, members and experts (see also www.bestufs.net)
Austria Reinhard Dorner Belgium Hugues Duchâteau

ECONSULT STRATEC
Birostrasse 12 Boulevard A. Reyers 156
A - 1230 Wien 1030 Brussels
Tel.: 0043 / 16 15 70 50 Belgium
r.dorner@econsult.at Tel.: +32 27350995
Fax: +32 27354917
h.duchateau@stratec.be
Europe Silvia Gaggi Europe Jérôme Pourbaix

Car Free Cities POLIS
s.gaggi@eurocities.be Rond-Point Schuman 6, box 8
1040 Brussels
Belgium
Tel.: +32 2 282 84 62
Fax: +32 2 282 84 66
Jpourbaix@polis-online.org
Europe Mark Major France Laetitia Dablanc

European Commission GART
mark.major@cec.eu.int 17 Rue Jean Daudin
75015 Paris, France
Tel.: +33 140563060
Fax: +33 145678039
laetitia.dablanc@gart.org
Germany Marcel Huschebeck Germany Peter Sonnabend

PTV AG Deutsche Post AG
Stumpfstrasse 1 Germany
76131 Karlsruhe p.sonnabend@deutschepost.de
Germany
Tel:: +49 721 96 51 178
Fax: +49 721 96 51 696
Marcel.huschebeck@ptv.de
Greece Prof. G.A. Giannopoulos Italy Marco Monticelli

University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) IVECO
Greece Via Puglia, 35
gag@hermes.civil.auth.gr 10156 Torino
Italy
Tel.: +39 011 6874862
Monticelli@iveco.com
Italy Giovanni Ruberti Netherlands Martin Quispel

Centro Studi sui Sistenme di NEA
Transporto (CSST) P.O. Box 1969
Corso Re Umberto, 30 2280 DZ Rijswijk, The Netherlands
10128 Torino Tel.: +31 70 3988 393
Italy Fax: +31 70 3988 426
Tel.: +39.011.5513840 mqu@nea.nl
Fax: +39.011.5513821
giovanni.ruberti@csst.it
Spain Guillermo Montero Sweden Haide Backman

PROINCA (PROYECTOS DE TFK (Transport Research Institute)
INGENIERIA Y CALIDAD, S.L) Sweden
Spain haide.backman@tfk.se
gmontero@proinca.com
Switzerland Martin Ruesch United Kingdom Philip Mortimer

RAPP AG Ingenieure + Planer ARRC, The University of Sheffield
Oerlikonerstrasse 38 United Kingdom
8057 Zürich phil@trucktrain.demon.co.uk
Switzerland
Tel.: 0041 / 1 / 312 36 65
Fax: 0041 / 1 / 312 32 13
martin.ruesch@rapp.ch
United Julian Allen

Kingdom Univ. Westminster
United Kingdom
allenj@westminster.ac.uk
Persons who provided material on E-commerce and urban freight distribution (home-shopping)
Austria Reinhard DORNER

ECONSULT
Birostrasse 12
A - 1230 Wien
Tel.: 0043 / 16 15 70 50
r.dorner@econsult.at
Belgium Hugues DUCHATEAU Natalie VAN ISACKER

STRATEC STRATEC
Av. Adolphe Lacomblé 69-71 Av. Adolphe Lacomblé 69-71
1030 Brussels 1030 Brussels
Belgium Belgium
Tel.: +32 27350995 Tel.: +32 27350995
Fax: +32 27354917 Fax: +32 27354917
h.duchateau@stratec.be
Denmark Daniel FIRTH Claus STINSEN

TFK - Institutet för transportforskning Dansk Handelskammeret
Box 12667 Börsen
11293 Stockholm 1217 Copenhagen K
Sweden Denmark
Tel.: ++46 8 625 58 16 Tel.: ++45 33 95 05 00
Fax: ++46 8 652 54 98 Fax: ++45 33 32 32 16
daniel.firth@tfk.se chs@commerce.dk
Finland Daniel FIRTH

TFK - Institutet för transportforskning
Box 12667
11293 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel.: ++46 8 625 58 16
Fax: ++46 8 652 54 98
daniel.firth@tfk.se
France Laetitia DABLANC Danièle PATIER

GART LET, University of Lyon, MRASH
17 rue Jean Daudin 14 avenue Berthelot
75015 PARIS 69363 Lyon cedex 07
France France
Tel. ++33 1 40 56 30 60
Fax: ++33 1 45 67 80 39
laetitia.dablanc@gart.org daniele.patier@let.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr
France Stéphane LOIRE
CREDOC
142 rue du Chevaleret
75013 Paris
France
dyna@credoc.asso.fr
Germany Marcel HUSCHEBECK

PTV AG
Stumpfstrasse 1
76131 Karlsruhe
Germany
Tel:: +49 721 96 51 178
Fax: +49 721 96 51 696
Marcel.huschebeck@ptv.de
Greece Katerina PAPAGEORGIOU

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Civil Engineering Department-
Laboratory of Transport Engineering,
University Campus, 540 06
Thessaloniki
GREECE
Tel. ++30 31 478373
Fax: ++30 31 47 84 32
k_papageorgiou@trd.com.gr
Italy Giovanni Ruberti

Centro Studi sui Sistenme di Transporto
(CSST)
Corso Re Umberto, 30
10128 Torino
Italy
Tel.: +39.011.5513840
Fax: +39.011.5513821
giovanni.ruberti@csst.it
Netherlands Martin QUISPEL

NEA
P.O. Box 1969
2280 DZ Rijswijk, The Netherlands
Tel.: +31 70 3988 393
Fax: +31 70 3988 426
mqu@nea.nl
Norway Daniel FIRTH

Box 12667
11293 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel.: ++46 8 625 58 16
Fax: ++46 8 652 54 98
daniel.firth@tfk.se
Spain Guillermo MONTERO

PROINCA
Calle Asunción 16, 3-D
41011 Sevilla
Spain
Tel.: ++34 954 28 60 33
Fax: ++34 954 28 53 68
gmontero@proinca.com
Sweden Daniel FIRTH

Box 12667
11293 Stockholm
Sweden
Tel.: ++46 8 625 58 16
Fax: ++46 8 652 54 98
daniel.firth@tfk.se
Switzerland Claudia GLÜCKER Dieter EGGER

RAPP AG Ingenieure + Planer RAPP AG Ingenieure + Planer
Oerlikonerstrasse 38 Oerlikonerstrasse 38
8057 Zürich 8057 Zürich
Switzerland Switzerland
claudia.gluecker@rapp.ch dieter.egger@rapp.ch
United Kingdom Philip MORTIMER Ian BLACK

ARRC, Cranfield University
The University of Sheffield Cranfield, Bedfordshire
217, Portobello United Kingdom
Sheffield S1 4DP Tel.: ++44 1234 75 11 22
United Kingdom Fax: ++44 1234 75 17 12
phil@trucktrain.demon.co.uk i.g.black@cranfield.ac.uk
Annex
ANNEX
ANNEX I Situation concerning E-commerce and urban freight distribution (home-

shopping) within European countries
ANNEX II Collected case studies (project-level)
ANNEX III Overview on collected online shopping projects

BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 Annex I - 1
Annex
ANNEX I
Situation concerning E-commerce and urban freight distribution (home-shopping) within
European countries
Country Description
Austria Most of the (inter-) national Catalogue-shopping companies do offer Internet Orders; Food sector: Merkur, Billa
and others offer internet ordering combined with home delivery service. More than 75% of SMEs do have Internet
access, but less than 10% use it at least for communication with the customer (B2C). 40% of Austrian people use
the internet and about 13% bought something via internet (about 0,8% of the whole commerce turnover)
There is a consumer oriented quality certification established: 14 firms are certified, 66 in the process of
evaluation.
B2B e-commerce importance will rise from high to very high thereby further reducing storage capacities and
providing a higher level of service.
B2C importance today is very low with only 2% of the whole e-commerce market, concentrating on books, software
and food. Use of online-shopping will increase but is limited because of goods characteristics and costs for
shipping and handling.
Belgium Existing concepts and projects in the field of e-commerce in Belgium include online bookshops (e.g. Proxis, Azur,
Fnac), supermarkets (e.g. Caddy Home organised by Delhaize, Collectandgo organised by Colruyt, Allo
Supermarché), clothes (e.g. 3 Suisses), travel agencies (e.g. Connection) and companies (e.g. Virgin Express,
Sabena, Thalys), banks (PC Banking), insurance, computer material (e.g. Excell) and auctions (e.g. Yezzz!).
A number of Internet sites provide directories of e-shops as for example, www.shopping.be and www.BuyIT.be.
The site http://shopping.advalvas.be also provides a list of e-shops classified by the type of product sold. A tool
exists on these sites that allows to compare the prices in different e-shops before buying a product.
Additionally, Brussels Technopol (www.technopol.be) has developed a pilot project in the form of a B2B virtual
commerce centre at the disposal of small and medium enterprises located in Brussels. This specialised Internet
site www.brussels-ecommerce.com is online since June 1999. Small and medium enterprises on the site include
agro-food, health, communication and precision industry firms.
The Belgian Post has created an e-service department whose first concrete project has been the development of
TM
PostBox , a system that will allow e-mails to benefit from the same credibility as traditional mail.
Approximately 150 Belgian companies are active in B2C e-commerce. There are currently
950 000 Belgian surfers with an e-commerce experience, that is surfers who have made at least one purchase
online. The total online turnover last year was of approximately 495,5 million EUR. While the number of e-
consumers has been increasing since last year, the turnover has remained the same. Last year, two online
purchases out of three were made on a Belgian site. The average price for products bought online is of 124 EUR.
At present, regulation on e-commerce is scant but Belgium is putting in place a framework based on EU directives.
In addition, the Belgian Business Federation (FEB) published a voluntary code of conduct for e-commerce in
August 2000.
Belgium is behind on the development of B2B e-commerce in comparison to other European countries according
to a study by the Boston Consulting Group. It should catch up with the other countries by 2004.
B2C e-commerce is expected to develop from medium to high importance. Companies are used to buying
products from catalogues and are thus interested in using e-commerce.
The purchase of books and CDs is the most important sector of the online business in terms of number of orders
made as it represents 40% of all online orders and 10% of the total online turnover. Travel reservations (hotels,
transport tickets) is the most important sector in the Belgian virtual purchase environment in terms of turnover: one
Annex
third of the total national online turnover originates in the tourism sector.
Belgian consumers appreciate personal contact when buying products and are resistant to choose products either
on a catalogue or on the Internet. They prefer to have the products in their hands before buying them. Consumers
are more likely to buy online products that are relatively inexpensive like books and CDs (the risk is lower). Half of
the e-shoppers do not feel comfortable with the idea of providing their credit card data on an Internet site. Some e-
shops provide home deliveries while others have created pick-up points. Some e-shops use both systems.
Denmark In 2001, 62% of the Danish population had access to the internet. 18% of those with internet access use it to shop
online, 11% of the total population has shopped online. In 1999, 19% of all Danish companies with more than 10
employees had the facility to receive orders through their web sites, the majority within the hotel restaurant and
catering trade (33%), motor vehicles and fuels (26%), business services (22%) and Transport (22%). Only 5% of
all enterprises gain at least 2% of their turnover from e-commerce. In 1999, the e-commerce market was worth an
estimated 504m EURO out of a total GNP of 177,2bn EURO (0.3 %).
There is no special legislation for e-commerce. Consumers are protected under ordinary Danish consumer law
The importance of B2B e-commerce, nowadays mainly used in the motor and fuels industry is expected to
increase from medium to high, thereby further reducing storage capacity and promoting JIT delivery.
The highly relevant B2C e-commerce is today mainly used for PC hardware, electrical goods, books and CDs and
will expand in the future into food, clothing and travel markets. Businesses offer high service levels including home
delivery while consumers take increasing advantages of the 24 hour shopping possibilities and the greater choice
provided by Internet retailers.
Finland In 2001, 45% of the Finnish population had access to the internet. In 1999, 17% of all Finnish companies with
more than 10 employees had the facility to receive orders through their web-sites, the majority in the wholesale
trade (21%), business services (20%) and transport (20%). 8% of all enterprises gain at least 2% of their turnover
from e-commerce. In 1999, the e-commerce market was valued at 412m EURO out of a total GNP of 124,9bn
EURO (0.3 %).
The importance of B2B e-commerce is expected to grow from medium to high, thereby further reducing storage
capacity and promoting JIT delivery.
B2C e-commerce, today mainly used for clothes, music, travel and books is considered medium important with a
growing potential. Businesses offer high service levels including home delivery while consumers take increasing
advantages of the 24 hour shopping possibilities and the greater choice provided by Internet retailers.
France Many e-commerce initiatives in France (as in all European countries). Some are utterly private, coming either from
international companies (Amazon), or from national companies (Pinault-Printemps-Redoute with Conforama and
Fnac for example, Promodes, Casino, Auchan, etc.). A specificity of French e-commerce is the rapid development
of grocery e-commerce, with 4 major private players (such as Telemarket, from Galeries Lafayette group). Some
public/private initiatives have developed to help local retailers compete with large firms and implement e-commerce
or home delivery services.
Many conferences on e-commerce have taken place in France for the past 3 years (OECD June 2001, SITL April
2001, INSEE December 2000, CES January 2000, CCIP June 1999…), and continue to do so. A comprehensive
survey was done in October 2000 by the CREDOC, a Paris research and consulting company (see CREDOC;
2001).
No specific legal framework conditions connected directly or indirectly to e-commerce in cities yet.
B2B e-commerce importance is considered low but estimated growing.
B2C e-commerce is still very low but growing. Today Internet shopping represents only 3% of total mail order.
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There is a strong tradition of ”catalogue-buying” (mail order) in France, especially in the Northern cities, and in
medium size cities. Rapidly developing grocery shopping by internet in large cities, especially Paris: 4% of Paris
households already use internet grocery shopping on a regular basis [CREDOC; 2001]. Product range increased
from 3000 products 2 or 3 years ago to 15 000 to 50 000 (for one operator) today. Food for 90 Million Euro was
sold via Internet in 2000, thereof 55 Million in Paris. Mostly dedicated picking warehouses, but some operators
have chosen to come back to non dedicated warehouses, and do the picking in the physical shops instead, to save
money. However, this business is nowhere profitable yet. All operators lose money. Even more rapid development
of home deliveries after physical buying in supermarkets. (4% of total groceries’ sales). In the future, a maximum
of 30 % of all households in large urban areas is expected to use regularly home deliveries (online and offline
shopping). All Paris and other large cities'supermarkets today provide home delivery services. For non grocery
products, internet sales are growing (books, records, etc.), but at a smaller rate than expected. There is a
differentiation of delivery rates according to deadlines for delivery. In the long term it is expected that customers
return to local retail stores for specific goods (meat, vegetables, cheese, wines), while heavy and common
products are purchased via the internet.
Germany Most e-commerce solution in German urban areas are related to B2C and home delivery activities. The German
market is dominated by the Portal strategy where a web portal aims at generating a sufficient volume of sales in
order to make the delivery (to workplace, home or pick-up points) from a central warehouse economically viable.
Home delivery service are provided by large parcel services such as Deutsche Post. 2 other strategies focus on
delivery hubs close to the final customer or on additional services like specialised food services or furniture
delivery.
B2B activities account for 90% of the e-commerce market. Still, with regards to urban freight transport their
importance is considered low, nowadays as well as in the future.
It is estimated that the B2C share of the e-commerce market will slightly grow from 10% up to 15%. Among the
consumer acceptance of e-commerce is mainly received by working people with high time priority. E-commerce
will result in more parcels being delivered. It is predicted that the German parcel market increases from 1,9 Bill
parcels 1999 to 3,1 Bill parcels in 2006. More frequent delivery will create the need for small regional warehouses.
Annex
Greece Greece is the least wired country in the EU and therefore, e-commerce, although presenting a significant potential
for the future, can still be considered in its infancy at the time. According to a survey by the Athens University of
Economics and Business (AUEB), 17% of the population has access to the Internet. This is however considered
to be quite a high estimate, as most of other surveys conducted present a lower percentage (8-10%). The number
of Web-sites originating in Greece is roughly one tenth that of German web-sites and one-fifteenth of UK sites
(OECD, 2000). the number of secure servers (necessary to protect online transaction from “indiscreet eyes”) per
capita is only one-fifth that of the entire EU. According to the same OECD data, the increase rate of the number of
PCs linked to the Internet was, for the second semester of 1999, the lowest among the OECD countries.
Moreover, Greece and Germany present the highest Internet access cost.
The main reasons for the slow Internet penetration and e-commerce development in the country are:
• the relatively low standard of living (67% of the EU average)
• the state monopoly on telecoms services, resulting in relatively poor infrastructure and high cost of Internet
access
In general, measures are taken to revert Greece’s laggardness. A proposed tax legislation will make respective
purchases (computer hardware, peripherals, software and Internet connections) tax deductible for households.
There are indications that Greece will eventually move at a more rapid pace than other countries, partly because of
the low-base effect. Present forecasts put the number of Internet users at 1.5 Mio. by the end of 2001 and 3.5-7
Mio. (depending upon the source) by 2004. As a result of that, it is anticipated that 9.5% of the population will
undertake transactions over the Internet by the end of 2003. This percentage however, includes the transactions
also within the service sector (especially banks/financial services) which is already relatively developed.
The Greek legislative regime covering e-commerce is still rather undeveloped. A Presidential Decree has recently
been drafted by a special expert committee and is currently being examined. The aim of the PD is to strengthen
security and transparency in electronic transactions, as well as to establish the necessary conditions enabling e-
business to penetrate the national market, encouraging electronic transactions and familiarising the consumers
with the new transaction practices.
At the moment, there is no government legislation on digital signatures and certificates. Some companies of the
private sector have chosen to establish their own systems rather than wait for governmental guidelines.
Finally, no organisation has been established to deal with e-commerce consumer protection.
B2B e-commerce is considered of little importance with a high growth potential. With on-line payment systems
widely considered insecure, the capabilities of e-commerce cannot be fully exploited. In fact, in some cases, e-
commerce is “degenerated” to simple information offer and inquiries fulfilment, rather than actual purchasing ability
and transaction completion. In the light of this fact, B2B exchanges tend to move more quickly than B2C. The
information technology and banks/financial services sectors are clearly dominating. B2B businesses have very
high expectations regarding e-commerce explosion over the years to come, however, most of them have not yet
reviewed the structure of their supply chains and their intern processes in order to be ready to easily go on-line.
They use e-commerce applications mainly for information exchange rather than to fulfil complete transactions.
Even if some companies already claim to use e-commerce applications both for B2B and for B2C transactions,
they do not yet have the two streams interfacing (e.g. an order placed on the B2C end cannot trigger a stock
replenishment process on the B2B stream).
B2C e-commerce activities are still very low but are considered to grow up to medium importance. Nowadays only
12% of Internet users purchase online. This translates to about 80.000-100.000 consumers. It is interesting to
note that only a 10-15% of the electronic purchases undertaken by Greek citizens are made from Greek e-shops.
Online sales include mainly books, magazines, and music CDs are the main physically distributed goods sold. To
a lesser extent, also PC peripherals and gear as well as other electronic goods. There is no indication at the
moment that the type of goods sold today will change significantly in the future. What is known however, from
recent surveys on B2C e-commerce in Greece, is that Greeks don’t tend to buy cloths and furniture over the
Annex
Internet. A significant percentage of a survey’s respondents have also excluded food and drinks from their Internet
shopping preferences, however, this might be before the introduction of e-shopping capability by a large super
market (which is expected to be initiated very soon).
There are about 300 e-shops run by domestic retailers, most of them being used for catalogue publicity and
ordering. There are no more than 50 “complete” e-shops offering on-line ordering and payment possibility. For all
of them, the delivery alternatives are either post/courier or pick up in person by a company’s branch. The relatively
very small volumes of on-line sales cannot possibly justify the cost of a dedicated physical distribution channel
established by the retailers solely for products purchased on-line. It must be noted here that research has revealed
that physical distribution within the big cities of the country (especially Athens) is currently unprofitable even to
large third-party logistics providers (handling a significant volume of freight). That means that for activities with
much smaller volumes, a dedicated channel for urban freight distribution, at present, does not seam feasible.
B2C companies tend to develop web sites where catalogue information and simple order placing possibility is
provided. In some cases product support is also provided but not on-line (e.g. printer drivers can be downloaded).
However, on-line services are not provided in these sites, e.g. quotations, stock availability, order tracking, definite
delivery times, etc. On all other aspects, the traditional brick-and-mortar behaviour is maintained. Many retailers,
even those maintaining also e-shops, open big stylish brick-and-mortar shops where shopping can be combined
with other entertaining activities (reading, video watching, having coffee, surfing the Internet, etc.) in order to
stabilise and enhance their relationships with customers. This trend, which is most apparent to bookstores and
computer gear shops, is a reaction mainly to the competition emerging from e-commerce.
The Greek consumers tend to use e-shops mainly to acquire product and price information. Then they buy at the
brick-and-mortar shop. They tend not to trust either the quality of the products bought electronically or electronic
transactions, but rather the combination of printed catalogue and telephone/fax. They resent providing the personal
data necessary for an electronic transaction to be fulfilled. The majority still prefers traditional shopping to e-
shopping as a form of entertainment.
Italy In the context of the e-evolution, Italian Ministry of Industry has established an observatory for e-commerce, called
“Osservatorio per il commercio elettronico” three years ago. The main aim of this organism is to monitor and to
prepare guidelines and policy measures for the e-commerce development in Italy.
Still in this context the “legge finanziaria 1999” (financial act 1999) has allocated 120 million Euro for the period
2000-2002 for financing the e-commerce development in Italy. These funds are particularly addressed to small and
economic operators. Actually Small and Medium Enterprises are responsible for the 92% of the Italian GDP; 82%
of such enterprises has less than 15 employees. Therefore any initiative in the e-commerce sector must take into
account this economic structure.
Home shopping is still to be well developed in Italy and a cultural change has not taken place yet. There are several
barriers to de development of e-commerce, e.g. the weight and number of large distribution networks and big
economic and logistics operators being much smaller in Italy than for example Germany or the UK. In the UK an
average delivery takes 4 days at a cost of 4 EUR whereas in Italy it takes 16 days at 7 EUR.
Netherlands There are no existing or planned legal framework conditions which are connected directly to e-commerce. Of
course the existing city access regulations result in constraints for the distribution of electronically ordered
products where it considers the situation of businesses and consumers located in (inner) cities.
Looking at transport volumes and market shares also in the Netherlands B2B e-commerce is more important than
B2C. However, with regards to urban transports B2C is considered more important as e-commerce will change
the B2C segment transport patterns, whereas in the B2B segment e-commerce will not necessarily result in new
transport patterns. With B2B e-commerce products might be coming from more suppliers and from longer
distances, lead-times will become shorter and there will be more frequent replenishments. Vertical e-marketplaces
will allow optimisation of the whole supply chain, thereby improving quality and efficiency. B2B e-commerce will
increase the companies’ reaction speed, the geographical scope of business and improve reliability and quality of
products.
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In B2C e-commerce media products (books, CDs), consumer electronics and food are dominating. The big and
medium sized businesses all have founded web sites where customers can (al least) find information about the
company. Secondly the products they offer may be presented on the web site. At third stage, companies offer the
possibility to order/purchase products on-line. Small (traditional) companies clearly lay behind to this development.
For newcomers the main argument to participate in e-commerce is the direct market access. They start with
Internet applications and link distribution to it. Distribution often causes them problems. Mail order companies do
e-commerce to reduce costs and use their client database. For retailers the threat that third parties may enter their
market is their most important driver. For large manufacturers and wholesalers on the other hand potential direct
access to the market is a persuasive argument for e-commerce, but they lack experience on distribution to the
individual customer. For the consumers themselves e-commerce offers a gigantic range of products and the
opportunity to shop at unconventional times. However, payment and distribution are often arguments against e-
commerce.
Norway In 2001, 63% of the Norwegian population had access to the internet, with 28% of all people accessing the net at
least once a day. 19% of those with internet access use it to shop online, 12% of the total population has shopped
online. In 1999, only 12% of all Norwegian companies with more than 10 employees had the facility to receive
orders through their web-sites, the majority within the hotel restaurant and catering trade (21%) and business
services (17%). 15% of companies plan to introduce this facility during 2000/01. Only 5% of all enterprises gain at
least 2% of their turnover from e-commerce.
White Paper No. 41 1998-99 Electronic Commerce sets put Norwegian Government’s objectives and strategies
for e-commerce (English summary: http://odin.dep.no/nhd/norsk/publ/veiledninger/024031-120002/index-dok000-
b-n-a.html)
The importance of B2B e-commerce, nowadays mainly used in the computer equipment and travel industry is
expected to increase from medium to high, expanding into office equipment, raw materials and courses. 45% of
companies bought goods or services over the internet in 2000
The highly relevant B2C e-commerce is mainly used for PC hardware, books, music and travel and will expand in
the future into food, clothing and hobby equipment. Businesses offer high service levels including home delivery
while consumers take increasing advantages of the 24 hour shopping possibilities and the greater choice provided
by Internet retailers.
Spain Some private initiatives begin to have relevance in the e-commerce. E.g. El Corte Ingles, the biggest distribution
company in Spain, trusts hardly this new business way. Also, the most important courier companies in Spain
(UPS, Fedex, TNT, ASM, DHL, Seur, Mrw or TDN) have relayed in the e-fulfilment bearing in mind, that most B2C
firms delegate all the logistic responsibilities to a Third Party Logistic (3PL) company. The largest part of the
important studies about e-commerce and e-logistics relies on private initiatives, such Centro Español de Logística
(Spanish Centre for Logistics) with BAQUIA, or Asociación Española de Comercio Electrónico (Spanish e-
Commerce Association) y la Federación de Comercio Electrónico y Marketing (e-Commerce and Marketing
Federation).
There is a normative draft in order to regulate the services around e-commerce in this country (see Project E -
01).
In 2001 over 7000 companies are using B2B e-commerce trying to improve service, open new markets, reduce
costs and optimise supply chain management. This number is estimated to double within the next 2 years, turning
the business’ importance from low to high. On the supply side B2B activities include ordering, logistics and
negotiation. Towards clients IT-applications are used for supplying receipts, logistics and invoicing.
The B2C e-commerce market is still of very little importance but online shopping sales are expected to grow
exponentially within the near future. The average online-consumer spends 210 EUR per year mainly on books,
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music and traveling. Still, only 10% of all online-companies use the Internet for selling their products and services,
most of them use the e-platform only for advertising and product information (virtual shop window).
Sweden In 2000, 65% of Swedish people had access to the internet at home, with 80% having access either at home, at
work, or their place of learning. 68% access the internet at least every other day. Around 9% of internet users
nd
purchased goods or services online in the 2 quarter of 2000, up from 4% in the same quarter in 1999.
There is no separate legislation regarding e-commerce. Internet shoppers and traders are protected only by
existing Swedish consumer legislation.
The importance of B2B e-commerce is expected to increase from medium to high.
The highly relevant B2C e-commerce is today mainly used for books, music and electrical goods and will become
even more important in the future. Businesses offer high service levels including home delivery while consumers
take increasing advantages of the 24 hour shopping possibilities and the greater choice provided by Internet
retailers.
Switzerland E-commerce is an important issue in Switzerland. Wholesalers, shippers, logistics actors, etc. are dealing with
various aspects of e-commerce. Seminars, workshops and conferences relating to e-commerce take place but
they do not focus on the interaction between e-commerce and urban freight distribution. The research activities at
the Federal Institute of Technology for example focus rather on payment and reliable electronic contracts than on
distribution aspects.
The City of Zurich sees some problems (like generation of traffic or influences on the whole traffic system in the
city) which might be caused by online-shopping concerning the delivery of goods in the city but also concerning
the connection of e-commerce with telematics applications (especially tracking and tracing). A first step is
therefore the integration of pick-up and delivery-points within the land use and traffic planning (reservation of
special areas).
MIGROS (one of the most important supermarket chains in Switzerland) is aware of the problems caused by the
increase of delivery of online-shopping-goods: “The current distribution concept and the increase of small
quantities cause more traffic. The further development of the MIGROS-Online-Shops will include an optimisation
of the logistics. That means that MIGROS will enforce the use of pick-up-points which are easily accessible (e.g.
MIGROS filling stations, railway stations, airports, big companies, etc.) in order to improve the negative ecological
effects of transport. The main goal is to avoid as many client-trips to the shopping centres as possible and to avoid
an increase of traffic in general.”
Since 1998, the Swiss government has followed six guiding principles in its activities relating to e-commerce:
1. State regulatory measures are introduced only when absolutely necessary;
2. Business self-regulation is preferable to government regulation if it is as effective;
3. Stakeholder participation is encouraged;
4. State regulatory measures should not affect technical developments;
5. State regulatory measures should be compatible with measures taken elsewhere, in particular in the EU;
6. Online and offline activities are given equal treatment.
These principles are rooted in Switzerland’s liberal economic policy. The state limits its activity to creating
framework conditions which have a stabilising influence while helping both foreign and internal trade to develop
and protecting individual freedom. A new law is going to be passed which will give Swiss consumers the same
protection concerning e-commerce (concerning e.g. electronic signature) like European consumers (draft version:
January 2001). There is no special legislation concerning distribution of goods which were sold via e-commerce.
B2B e-commerce in Switzerland is considered of medium importance. In general e-commerce is expected to

increase, bur rather the information exchange part than the online-shopping part. 2/3 of the companies have got a
web-page, e-commerce is done by 32.5% of these companies. 68.5% of the “e-commerce-companies” have got a
volume of sales which is generated by the internet of max. 10%.
On the B2C side a few supermarkets have real home-delivery and internet-shopping concepts. They base on
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different distribution concepts e.g. via Post, car which is owned by the company, Pick-up points. They work on
regional or national level (see projects CH - 01 to CH - 05). Many small shops offer also home delivery-services
and online-shopping. They offer very often a small choice of specialised products. Distribution in general via post
or car/delivery van which is owned by the company. (Examples: www.spruengli.ch, www.vinoversum.ch,
www.hofmanns-classics.ch). Traditional pizza-services, party-services now also offer their products online. In
Zurich there is a new online Sunday-breakfast service. Distribution in general by a car which is owned by the
company (Example: www.pizzakurier.ch). Products of international companies are often distributed via Post
(Examples: www.ikea.ch, www.amazon.ch). However, the importance of B2C e-commerce is still considered very
low, though growing. Online sales account for less than 1% of total B2C sales all over Switzerland. Main products
concerned are books/magazines/brochures, computer-software/CDs/further equipment for computers and
travelling/hotel-booking.
Approx. 25% of the Swiss population have already done internet shopping one or more times, most of them
regularly. E-commerce is used by clients in rural as well as in urban regions. Both types of customers expect the
same level of service. 41% of the online-shoppers do now less shopping in conventional shops and 7% did not
change their conventional shopping trips. 60% of the consumers do not see any benefits in using online shopping
and do not plan to change their shopping habits. They prefer the dense net of supermarkets with long opening
hours, some of them 365 days a year. The most important hindrance is payment. The disposition to pay with credit
card, postcard or “Cybercash” is rather low. Other negative aspects seem to be long delivery times, high delivery
costs and technical problems.
Many companies in the B2C e-business underestimate the efforts needed to implement and maintain their logistic
models. A Swiss particularity are the so called “milk-boxes” which are incorporated in the mail-boxes and are big
enough to store small parcels if the addressee is not at home during delivery.
United In terms of a framework for operations there are legal issues over the delivery and the point at which a
Kingdom consignment is released to the purchaser and there are implications here for failed deliveries, delivery condition of
the ordered goods and products, returned goods processes etc.
B2B Transport implications are neutral as the products would have been procured by this or other routes anyhow.
B2C e-commerce activities have been taken up by the major food retail supermarket chains. The take up rate for
these has been estimated to grow to 10% of all food purchased from supermarkets but other estimates suggest
this will peak at 5% and this mainly in inner-city areas. Other retail operations have home delivery services linked
directly to the purchasing activity but these are much smaller in volume than food retail and tend to rely more on
existing transport and delivery agencies such as postal services and couriers. The strategies of the food retailers
are still developing with some using in store order preparation. Others have looked at the concept of specialised
ordering centres but have moved away from this on the grounds of first cost and the implied transport burden to
serve remote customers. The whole concept is still developing rapidly and despite a lot of hype appears to be
making only relatively slow penetration as a means of ordering and delivering food products.
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 Annex II - 1
Annex
ANNEX II
Collected case studies (projects-level) - E-commerce and urban freight distribution (home-shopping)
Code City/Region Name of concept Short description of concept

AT - 01 Central Europe Mondealnet Service GmbH Start-up company founded in order to develop a special concept to provide primarily B2C-solutions for SMEs, but also B2B.
Offers to SMEs chances to participate in the world-wide market via Internet and a high performance logistic system for storage,
handling, transport and outsourcing of logistic services. Designs processes for outsourcing the logistic services including
frontend, payment, warehousing, fulfilment, callcenter.
AT - 02 - Study “B2C Logistics and Fulfillment” Dissertation by St. Vlasek at Fachhochschule Wiener Neustadt developing, evaluating and describing the relevant flow of
goods and its effects on the system of management and controlling (not yet published).
AT - 03 Central Europe Reference models eLogistics R&D project still in progress by Econsult in collaboration with the logistic service provider MondealNET aiming at the
development of a reference model, definition of a concept for measuring and controlling, implementation (pilot by MondealNet),
survey of outcoming results, benchmarking, optimisation. The project is funded by national organisations (ITF and Ministry of
Transport).
BE - 01 Brussels Ready.be Pick-up point concept by the GIB Group, the former owner of GB Supermarkets running from 1998 – end 2000. Ready.be did
not organise any home deliveries. The purchasing procedure was organised as follows:
1. The client ordered the products through the Internet site, preferably before midnight.
2. The Ready.be team prepared the shopping basket the next morning.
3. The client retrieved his order between 4 PM and 9 PM at one of the pick-up points (Ready Points which could be parkings of
GB supermarkets, gas stations and public parkings...) located along main roads in and around Brussels. The steward handed
the products to the client who signed a receipt.
4. Payment was made by credit card within the next two days.
Ready.be had 50 collection points. A WAP project that was to allow clients to transfer their shopping list via their mobile
phones was also under development. Although customer response was very positive the project was stopped because of
financial loses and the GB Supermarkets being taken over by Carrefour who was not interested as it had ist own system
(Ooshop).
Annex

BE - 02 - Evadix E-land Evadix E-land is a joint venture between Alcopa (logistics service provider) and the Evadix Group (IT company). Evadix owns
2 2
two large logistics platforms: one of 35 000 m in Vilvorde (Evadix E-land) and one of 10 000 m in Tournai (Evadix Logistics).
E-logistics currently represents a small percentage of the turnover due to the fact that e-commerce is still low in Belgium. The
company therefore intends to continue working for classical clients in addition to e-clients. Clients of Evadix are classical B2B
clients who outsource their logistics and B2C clients. Two examples of clients are BBL Marketing Services (bank) and Sofures
(office supplies). The contract with the BBL involved the creation of the virtual shopping centre www.bblshoppingmall.be.
Evadix E-land has entirely outsourced the transport of e-products but it keeps control through a tracking and tracing system.
[www.evadix.be]
BE - 03 Brussels and Caddy-Home: your home supermarket Home shopping service by Delhaize, one of the main supermarket chains in Belgium, which started 14 years ago by telephone
surroundings and fax orders. E-shoppers are provided with a client number and password enabling them to order products from the full
supermarket’s range by telephone, fax or Internet. Purchased products are delivered to the customer’s home by van through
Caddy-Home’s own distribution channel. The day and time of delivery may be chosen by the client and specified at the time of
order. Caddy-Home organises four delivery rounds on week days (9 a.m. to 12 a.m., 12 a.m. to 2 p.m., 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
and 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.) and two delivery rounds on Saturdays (9 a.m. to 12 a.m. and 12 a.m. to 2 p.m.). Consumers pay by
cash, check, bank card or lunch vouchers, companies by cash, check or invoices to be paid within the following 8 days. A new
service called “take ‘n go” has just been set up. Orders may be made via Internet, by telephone, or by fax before 10 a.m. The
prepared order may be retrieved between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the business centre of Brussels, at the new “Manhattan”
Delhaize City. Two parking places are specially dedicated to facilitating pick-up of orders. Payment is possible by Bancontact
or credit card. The Caddy-Home service is used 400 clients per day and generated a turnover of 11 Million Euro in 2000.
[www.caddyhome.be]
BE - 04 Benelux www.proxis.be Proxis is market leader for the online sale of books, CDs, videos and DVDs in the Benelux. Articles purchased online are
delivered to the address mentioned by the customer after payment has been registered by Proxis. All articles are currently sent
by the Belgian Post. Payment may be made by credit card, check, a prepaid money order or by using an electronic banking
payment program. Proxis has a partnership agreement with SECA which allows customers to pick-up the purchased products
at any SECA gas station in Belgium. In this case payment must be by credit card. Products cannot be returned to the SECA
station but may be sent back to Proxis’ offices in Vilvoorde.
Annex

CH - 01 Various regions www.migros-shop.ch (online-shopping) All articles available which are offered in the MIGROS supermarkets, one of the country’s most important supermarket chains.
Home-delivery, company-pick-up or pick-up at the bigger supermarkets. Same prices as in the supermarket, home delivery
service by external delivery company. Standard delivery service (8-10 Euro per delivery depending on total value of ordered
goods) with 2 time-slots (16.00-17:30 and 17:30-19:00). DeLuxe delivery service by appointment at 23 Euro. Goods are
delivered from 1 central distribution centre in Schönbühl BE. The orders are delivered in reusable packages which are returned
during every delivery.
CH - 02 Not known Improvement of the logistic concept for The concept is still being developed. It will include more pick-up points and possibly the “Service Porteur” which offers home
MIGROS online shopping (see CH – delivery by bike or electric bike with trailer. Currently there is no more information available.
01)
CH - 03 Whole Switzerland www.le-shop.ch (online-shopping) Most important virtual online supermarket in Switzerland. Total sales in 2000: 4 Million Euro. 40 employees. Over 4000
and Liechtenstein products. 76% of purchases are made by regular clients, mainly young families and working mothers. Most orders on Mondays
for planned weekly shopping. Average shopping basket value: 95 Euro. One central logistics center. Home delivery via parcel
post and express post at 6 Euro per order, regardless quantity and weight. Use of shipping boxes (“dispoboxes”) which the
postman recollects again. For the new evening delivery in large cities (between 5:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.), orders can be placed
up to midnight for the next day. For all other areas supplied, orders placed by 4:30 p.m. are delivered on the following day (from
Monday to Saturday). [http://info.leshop.ch/uk/Portrait_Facts_Figures.html]
CH - 04 Lake of Zurich www.lidomarkt.ch (online-shopping) Online-shopping of a regional supermarket. Over 3300 products of daily requirements. Home delivery by private car
region / Switzerland (refrigerated goods, regional only) or within the whole country by the Swiss post Office’s parcel service. Delivery on the same
day if order was registered early enough (for delivery between 18:00-20:00 for the latest 17:00, no delivery on Saturday, Sunday
and public holidays). Flat rate 6 Euro per order. Home delivery is done with a Volkswagen Caddy. Longest distance is ½ h
therefore no cooling system necessary. The clients are called before delivery in order to guarantee that they are at home. Pick-
up point at the shop till 18.30 and from 11:00 till 17:00 on Sundays. For later pick-up a special pick-up point exists in the
nearby restaurant/bar open till 24:00 every day. In general low demand for chilled products but high percentage of beauty
products, detergents and specialities, e.g. chocolate. So far 70% delivery via Swiss Post; 20% Pick-up at the supermarket;
10% direct home deliveries; 0% pick-ups at the nearby restaurant/bar. Problem: In the retail sector prices change very fast. It’s
not possible to have always the current market prices online available (update of the web-page).
CH - 05 Zurich, Winterthur, www.spar.ch (online-shopping) Online-shopping of a minor supermarket chain in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Over 2500 products to meet daily
St. Gallen requirements. Home or office delivery within 3 hours per courier (Monday to Friday 09:00 till 19:00). Flat rate 6 Euro per order.
Annex

CH - 06 Switzerland Electronic future of Switzerland – E- Multi-client study by IHA GfM and Pixelpark (Schweiz) which gives detailed information on the use of Internet, Electronic
focus 2001 – Swiss online study Commerce, Tele-banking and Mobile-phone based on the last 5 years. The results are adopted on the special situation of each
client (who is customer of the study). The results are not public available. The clients buy the results and are not allowed to
make them public.
CH - 07 Switzerland ServiceLog: For repairs and service ServiceLog by The Swiss Post offers logistics solutions for sending and exchanging faulty equipment. Companies in the
computer, electronics, telecommunications and related sectors appreciate this practical and efficient service. With ServiceLog
the whole repair process, from receiving the faulty equipment to sending it out following repair, can be completed in just a few
days. Items are sent via the quick PostPac Priority service. Four options are available. Other services such as Call Centre are
available at an additional charge. [www.post.ch/e/parcel_post/pk_einstieg.html]
CH - 08 Mainly Switzerland Study: e-business at logistics service Nearly all of the different logistics service providers focus more or less on new strategies which integrate e-commerce/e-
providers 2000 business. In order to find out more about the future changes this survey was initiated by the SGL (Swiss association for
Logistics) and provides good feedback and interesting information on the strategies of different logistics service providers.
[info@sgl.ch]
CH - 09 Switzerland Study “New communication media use The study (elaborated within the National Research programme NRP 41 “Transport and Environment”) aims at assessing the
in enterprises and its influences on importance of the new information and communication technologies within the companies’ internal and external communication
traffic” processes and at estimating the consequences of this development in a qualitative manner. Written inquiry with a sample of
840 companies among all 16'
000 legal persons owning a Internet-domain *.ch. (answering rate 30%) Additional expert
interviews. [www.nfp41.ch]
CH - 10 Switzerland Study “New forms of communication The study (elaborated within the National Research programme NRP 41 “Transport and Environment”) bases on 30 expert
and co-operation between enterprises: interviews with different companies about new communication technologies and how they are changing the companies
consequences for transports” processes. [www.nfp41.ch]
th
D - 01 Hamburg, Berlin, www.einkauf24.de Online-shopping with home delivery of SPAR, the 5 largest retailer in Germany. Customers can order via Internet, Fax or Call
Munich Centre. Having received the orders Einkkauf24 creates invoices and delivery documents which will be electronically transferred
to SPAR stores where the delivery will be assembled. For the delivery 3 time windows exist: 10 to 13 hours, 14 to 17 hours and
15 to 19 hours. Orders which reach the Call Centre by 18 hours will be delivered on the same day. In future more focus will be
placed on business and large customers.
Annex

D - 02 Germany www.pickpoint.de Pick Point AG (in collaboration with Deutscher Paket Dienst, UPS, TNT and Agip Deutschland) provides a logistical
infrastructure for all kind of webshop based transactions. Pick Point comprises the delivery of commodities to particular
convenience points (e.g. petrol stations etc.). Webshops can join the system by paying licenses to Pick Point (3 to 6 DM per
parcel). In total about 1300 Pick Points exist presently in Germany. To the time the consignment is delivered to the Pick Point
the customer receives an SMS or e-mail as confirmation. The commodity will be stored for 10 days. About 100 additional Pick
Points complete the network each month. For some shops Pick Point delivers up to 30% of the webshop’s turnover.
D - 03 Dortmund www.tower24.de Tower24 is a pilot project by the Fraunhofer Institut für Materialfluss und Logistik IML for decentralised drop off and pick up
points as an alternative to home deliveries. The Tower24 concept is a full automatic storage system for small consignments. It
is an open system for different suppliers and service providers. The supplier can drive his van directly in front of the Tower24
for delivery. The window for entering the goods is designed in a way that 100 parcels can be stored in 20 Min. Having the
commodities delivered the customers will be informed (SMS, e-mail). The customer has a “drive-in” possibility to pick up his
parcel without leaving the car. As different temperature zones can be generated in the tower different commodities can be
stored from frozen to chilled and non food goods. The customer pays in front of the tower with bank or credit card. Tower24
enables bundling of goods flows reducing distribution costs and the number of trips. A disadvantage is that a Tower24 once
existing can not be enlarged.
D - 04 Berlin Internet House Within this pilot project by the real estate company Quadriga and the communication service provider Projektbüro Q24.net a
newly built dwelling house will be equipped with internet communication links and devices. All possible transactions via the web
(purchases, banking, travel etc.) can be made via a “house community” operated e-commerce portal. Access to the portal will
be given to each tenant via ID code. The houses have special “home delivery equipment” like cupboards installed in the house
wall where e-purchases or other services products like cleaned suites can be stored in. Co-operation contracts with UPS, Colt
telecommunications, Telekom, Siemens, Techem, Smart and Amazon have been made. If the concept is accepted by the
customers it is planned to further equip 800 houses with this technology.
Annex

D - 05 US / Germany Study “Consumer direct: home delivery Study by the Fraunhofer Anwendungszentrum für Verkehrslogistik und Kommunikationstechnik that compares home delivery
for food and consumer goods IN THE services in the US and in Germany. The study focusses on the “last mile” of the consumer goods distribution (interface
Internet – a logistics view of the last mile consumer home delivery service). The performance of companies were analysed by means of their service, customer
to the customer” stimulation, delivery and service variety, the way of order placing, the kind and duration of the delivery as well as the price
structure and payments. The study states that in Germany no dense network for home delivery services exists. Most of the US
home delivery services use distribution centres for delivery while in Germany the delivery starts at retail outlets. The
consolidation of LTL is not given in the US neither in Germany or Europe. American and European show a better performance
in delivery time, time windows and customer service than German services. Added value services are underdeveloped in
Germany.
E - 01 Spain Preliminary sketch for the Information Draft for a future law that will establish a legal framework, in order to encourage the electronic commerce, as well as the
Society Services and Electronic different services offered via internet. This Spanish law incorporates the European Directive 2000/31/EC. It will consider the
Commerce Law (30/04/2001) Consumers’ rights as well as the obligations for the providers. Another important point is the electronic agreement and the
ways to regulate it.
E - 02 Spain www.elcorteingles.es B2C e-commerce platform by El Corte Ingles, Spain’s biggest retail company for the end consumer (more than 50 chain
stores). The logistics associated to the e-commerce are subcontracted to Third Party Logistics companies (3PL) which
consider the business like any other courier customer.
rd rd
F-1 The center of Paris Paris 3 PAD (Portage et Home Delivery and taxi service set up by City of Paris and the Paris 3 Association of retailers and local shop keepers (50
rd
3 district Accompagnement à Domicile) members) because traditional city centre shops were loosing customers, and there was a strong environmental need to
decrease the use of the private car for shopping. 4 persons are devoted to delivering goods purchased (by phone or by physical
visits) within 1 hour. Customers can also ask for a ride/taxi service (a car comes to get them at home to drive them to a shop, or
a service provider such as a beauty parlour, a hair dresser, etc.). 40 deliveries a day so far (it started in October 2000 with 20
deliveries a day) by electric motorcycle or car. The experiment has been financed mainly by the Ministry of Economy through
subsidised jobs. Also the Vivendi Foundation, Electricity of France and the Paris Regional Council have provided money. Shop
keepers pay for part of the service. Their customers so far do not pay anything. However, operating costs are high. [PAD,
Association des Artisans et Commerçants de Paris 3, 10 rue Caffarelli, 75003 Paris, France]
Annex

F-2 Nanterre Nanterre PAD Home Delivery and Taxi service among 150 shopkeepers (similar to F –1). The Nanterre experiment is the first to have opened,
and it is the largest so far (number of shop keepers associated, number of home deliveries made). It is financed by their
memberships (20% of the budget) and by the Ministry of Transport (National Research Program on Urban Goods). Customers
pay 1.5 Euro for each delivery. 100 deliveries and 20 rides a day made by 6 employees. However, financially, the PAD does not
manage to be profitable without public subsidies. According to the project’s initiator Mr CREUZET, "a PAD will always need at
least a 25% subsidy rate from the public sector". [AVEC, 9 rue Henri Barbusse, 92000 Nanterre, France, Pat.nicolas@France-
commerce.net]
F-3 Strasbourg Relais-Liberté 2 Month Experiment during Christmas shopping in 1998. The general idea was that a city service would pick up parcels and
errands from shops and deliver them to customers at the end of the day. Deliveries could be made:
- in small depot boxes close to the city centre (at a fare of 1 Euro for the customer)
- in depot boxes in parking facilities of tramway Park and Ride terminals (cost : 2 Euro)
- at home (cost : 5 Euro)
30 employees were hired to run the delivery services. Electric and PLG cars were used. The initiative came from the
Strasbourg city Government, with a strong financial support from the national government (Urban Goods Movement national
research program). 1500 deliveries made : 950 in depot boxes, 275 on Park and Ride facilities, 270 home deliveries. These
results were far less than expected (20 000 expected). Bad communication (from the CCI of Strasbourg for example) is
supposed to be the explanation. People who used the service however were extremely satisfied with the service. No
commercial, legal or technical problem during deliveries. [Pierre Lavergne, ADEUS (Strasbourg Planning Agency), Phone:
++33 3 88 21 49 31]
F-4 Paris Magasin de Quartier en Ile-de-France Planned (not yet implemented) public / private project for local delivery depots aimed at reducing the number of home deliveries
in dense commercial / residential areas. These depots will be opened from early in the morning till late in the evening. Carriers
will be able to leave parcels and goods in this depot instead of delivering them all the way to their clients (whether shop keepers
or households). Clients will then be informed of the availability of their products. Magasin de Quartier employees will deliver the
goods to the final clients (at a cost), or wait until the client comes and picks them. Both household deliveries and shop
deliveries are considered together. [Carole Boublil, Direction des Etudes, CCI de Paris, 27 avenue de Friedland, 75008 Paris,
France, cboublil@ccip.fr]
Annex

F-5 Grenoble Achat-Grenoble.com (internet web site A common web site is organised for all Grenoble small shops and services interested. They can choose between a simple
for Grenoble shop keepers and retailers) presentation of their outlet (internet as a shop window), or a full e-commerce service. Deliveries are organized at home by each
shop owner individually, or customers can pick up their goods in the shops after e-commerce reservation and payment. Free 15
minute parking in city centre is provided to customers of shop keepers which are members of the web site (reimbursement of
the parking fee when collecting the goods).
F-6 Paris Study “Home delivery, the Paris case A recent survey among 1200 households from Paris and nearby municipalities (see CREDOC; 2001) on home deliveries, after
study” traditional shopping or ordered electronically. Main findings: 12% of all Paris households use home delivery services regularly,
one third out of these in connection with e-commerce (in two thirds of the cases the buyer goes to a shop to choose the
products and to pay). The typical home delivery customer is a household with more children, a higher income and a higher car
ownership that average. Reasons for not using home delivery are the absence of added value, the fear of being waiting at
home, the fear of low quality or damaged goods, the price and the time it takes. Price elasticity for home delivery is generally
low. In Paris, nearly all supermarkets offer a home delivery service. 7% to 10% of the shops’ turnover come from home
delivered products. In the next 5 years, about 30% of all Paris region households are expected to be regular users of home
delivery services (not necessarily ordered by Internet, though). [CREDOC; 2001]
GR - 01 Athens Veropoulos “Kat’oikon” (at home) and Currently being implemented online shopping service of Veropoulos Supermarkets, one of the most important supermarket
“online Kat’oikon” (online at home) chains in Greece. Taking into consideration the relative low Internet penetration in greek households orders can be placed
either by phone or by internet. There is a free membership (providing some personal data) and a price-threshold (orders should
exceed 25.000 Drs, or 30 different products) to the service. Each order is automatically forwarded to the store closest to the
desired (by the customer) delivery point and is processed there. Orders placed before 16:00 are executed on the same day, the
rest in the morning of the following day. Orders are delivered to the customer’s home/office address or to any other requested
delivery point, within a selected time window, and only on working days (Monday to Saturday). They can also be picked up from
one of the company’s stores. Payment can be made either cash or by credit card upon delivery (no automatic payment
available). This means that the card owner should be present at delivery.
Annex

NL - 01 The Netherlands Albert Heijn Thuisservice Online shopping channel with home delivery service of Albert Heijn, The Netherlands’ biggest retailer. Customers can
subscribe to the service and order the products using a password. There is a minimum amount of products to be ordered of the
value of 36 Euro. A standard delivery moment has to be chosen before ordering of products. Time between ordering and
delivery is at least one working day. Big orders of single products (e.g. few boxes of wine) should be ordered 48 hours before
the desired time of delivery in order to prevent “out of stock”. Most products are slightly more expensive at the web-store than in
the supermarket. Furthermore, one has to pay a fixed price for the delivery (Monday – Thursday 2,70 Euro per delivery, Friday
and Saturday 4,10 Euro). The products of Albert Heijn are distributed by own distribution channels. They have an
own vehicle fleet of light goods vehicles that deliver the electronically ordered products to the customer’s home
addresses. If the customer is not at home, the products are not delivered but the customer is nevertheless charged with
service costs and costs for the products that needed to be conditioned. Payment is by means of cash, automatic transfer from
the bank account, by mobile PIN machines (Personal Identification Number on bankcard / Eurocard) or pay on account in case
of companies (B2B). There used to be the possibility to pick-up the electronically ordered products at Shell fuel
stations. However the co-operation between Albert Heijn and Shell was stopped about a year ago because of
conflicting interests. Shell now has developed own brand (small) supermarkets at fuel stations and Albert Heijn
only provides a home delivery service. [http://ah-thuisservice.ah.nl/hss/shop]
NL - 02 Benelux, UK Relaystar Products purchased on various Internet sites (Tintin.com, The Body World, DVD Zone 2, IntelliHome, Relaystar,
Winesmart.com and RedCorp.com) are delivered by UPS to any of the Texaco service station in Belgium chosen by the
customer . People are notified by e-mail when packages arrive. During the process the customer is informed about the
whereabouts of the goods by means of the package being scanned. Due to the good coverage of Texaco fuel stations in the
Benelux and long opening hours the customer can easily pick up the package. Returns are possible by the same means.
[www.realystar.com]
UK - 01 United Kingdom TESCO Stores Mouse to House Full electronic shopping services with 24/7 access by probably the most successful UK food retailer. Uses the Internet as
strategy primary method of ordering. Home delivery of the full store range of goods and products based on using the existing stores as
the base for order consolidation and preparation. Product prices are identical to the ones in the stores, flat rate per delivery of 5
Pounds. Orders are delivered between 08:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m. Monday to Saturday in refrigerated vans with a frozen food
compartment. Published information by TESCO suggests that they are making money on this project but there are also
suggestions that all the food retailers have moved into this area and have lost money on an attempt to mimic each other. The
use of in store picking of orders and the use of electronic methods of order placing and payment seem to have paid off.
Whether the take up rate for home shopping will move beyond the 10% mark remains to be established.
Annex

UK - 02 United Kingdom Study “Overview of Home deliveries in A study by the Transport Studies Group of the University of Westminster and the Freight Transport Association about the
the UK” (@ Your Home) home delivery situation in the UK. The study covers e-commerce and non-e-commerce issues. In the first chapters the study
analyses the home shopping and home delivery market, the logistics necessary and respective issues (customer at home
problem, collection and delivery points, etc.). Three categories of goods to be delivered are studied in detail: home delivery of
small packages, grocery products and large items. In a second part the study addresses environmental impacts, effects on trip
generation and travel behavior, spatial impacts with regard to urban, rural and regional planning and issues of social inclusion
and technological characteristics. Finally recommendations for future research activities are given.
The study (published in October 2001) was commissioned by the Department of Trade and Industry in the UK (DTI) as a result
of perceived gaps in available information concerning home delivery as identified by the Retail Logistics Task Force (DTI
Foresight). The research is part of the continuing work commissioned by the DTI into e-commerce and home shopping, as
r3eflected by previous reports including “@ Your Service” (2000) and “Bricks and Clicks” (2000). The more popular “@ Your
Home” report which is based on the study is available at the DTI Foresight web-page:
www.foresight.gov.uk/servlet/Menu?id=5954 [www.wmin.ac.uk/transport/projects/homedel.htm]
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 Annex III - 1
Annex
ANNEX III
Overview on collected B2C case studies according to their approaches towards the “last mile distribution”
Country City/Region Name of concept Pick-up point lockerpoint Delivery on Time slot Non-timed
(unattended) appointment delivery delivery
BE - 01 Brussels Ready.be
[
BE - 03 Brussels Caddy-Home: your home supermarket
[ [
BE - 04 Benelux www.proxis.be
[ [
CH - 01/02 various within
Switzerland
www.migros-shop.ch (online-shopping)
[ [ [
CH - 03 Switzerland www.le-shop.ch (online-shopping)
[ [
CH - 04 various within
Switzerland
www.lidomarkt.ch (online-shopping)
[ [ [
CH - 05 Zurich,
Winterthur, St.
www.spar.ch (online-shopping)
[
Gallen
D - 01 Hamburg, Berlin,
Munich
www.einkauf24.de
[
D - 02 Germany www.pickpoint.de
[
D - 03 Dortmund www.tower24.de
[
BESTUFS – D 2.2 Best Practice Handbook Year 2001 Annex III - 2
Annex
Country City/Region Name of concept Pick-up point lockerpoint Delivery on Time slot Non-timed
(unattended) appointment delivery delivery
D - 04 Berlin Internet House
[ [
E - 02 Spain www.elcorteingles.es
[ [
[
rd rd
F - 01 Paris 3 district Paris 3 PAD (Portage et Accompagnement à
Domicile)
F - 02 Nanterre Nanterre PAD ?
F - 03 Strasbourg Relais-Liberté
[
F - 04 Paris Magasin de Quartier en Ile-de-France
[
F - 05 Grenoble Achat-Grenoble.com (internet web site for Grenoble
shop keepers and retailers) [ [
GR - 01 Athens Veropoulos “Kat’oikon” (at home) and “online Kat’oikon”
(online at home) [ [
NL - 01 Netherlands Albert Heijn Thuisservice
[ [
NL - 02 Benelux, UK Relaystar
[
UK - 01 United Kingdom TESCO Stores Mouse to House strategy
[

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DRAFT FOR DELIVERABLE D2.

Best Practice Handbook Year 2 (2001)

TITLE : Best Urban Freight Solutions

PROJECT CO-ORDINATOR: PTV Planung Transport Verkehr AG (DE)

PROJECT START DATE : Jan 2000 DURATION : 48 months

DATE OF ISSUE OF THIS REPORT : December 2001

3 E-Commerce and urban freight distribution (home shopping) 13

3.6 Conclusions and recommendations 69

REFERENCES AND CONTACT PERSONS

Figure 1: Sources of Best practices and thematic structuring 11

Table 1: Overview on all online-shop examples collected 27

1.1 The BESTUFS Thematic Network and need for action

• To create a permanent and dynamic concentration activity during the

More information Web: www.bestufs.net

1.2 Relation to previous and running activities concerning urban

1.2.1 European level

more information see www.cordis.lu.

1.2.2 National level

On national level the activities concerning urban goods transport vary

1.3 Themes to be treated within BESTUFS

• Land use, infrastructure and regulations planning

Further themes • Freight centres

• Door to door freight transport aspects

www.bestufs.net) provide more information. Finally, the theme “Urban road

1.4 Aims, contents and use of the handbook

Or to the BESTUFS administration centre:

BESTUFS Administration centre

The following graphic describes the action lines:

Catalogue of Determination of thematic focus

Ranking the good practices

Figure 1: Sources of Best practices and thematic structuring

3 E-Commerce and urban freight distribution (home

What is There is a great variability of definitions on e-commerce. According to

restructuring whole value chains transferring B2B-businesses into B2C-

Transport in B2B B2B-e-commerce is typically characterised by a flow of information by

Logistics Information technology enables the establishment of e-platforms and e-

Figure 2 shows the main categories of goods purchased by world-wide

Air travel reservations

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Figure 2: Percentage of online-shoppers buying different goods

commerce is a fast growing and quickly changing market the available

3.2 Situation at country level

Figure 3: Growing importance of B2B e-commerce

Figure 4: Growing importance of B2C e-commerce

Existing national In all European countries e-commerce is considered a highly innovative

• In Greece a Presidential Decree has been drafted by a special expert

Private initiatives In Austria a consumer oriented quality certification system concerning e-

United Kingdom 0.37

United States 1.01

0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2

Figure 5: Turnover generated by online shopping in percent of total

Figure 6: Internet shoppers as a percentage of working age population

countries (Scandinavian countries were among the first with a dense

Effects on national Information on national particularities concerning the effects of e-commerce

3.3 Regarded case studies (project-level)

Figure 7: Different categories among the collected projects

Figure 8: Number of projects relying on different last-mile solutions

Assessment of the The following project descriptions show examples of planned or

• Success / failure and important experiences