The Impact of Market Growth on Delivery Times: Evidence from JD.com

27 Pages Posted: 12 Apr 2021 Last revised: 10 Jan 2022

Date Written: April 9, 2021

Abstract

We analyze 214,726 shipments made by the e-commerce platform JD. We find that customers who joined the JD platform more recently receive slower deliveries than legacy customers who joined longer ago do. Specifically, we find that every additional year a customer has been on the platform decreases their average delivery time by about 0.67 hours. Our results suggest that as JD's traditional demand centers have become saturated, it has pursued growth in progressively harder-to-reach areas with less-developed distribution infrastructure, which makes its supply chain slow down as it grows.

Keywords: Supply chain, market growth, shipping speed, e-commerce, quality of service

Suggested Citation

Glinskiy, Vadim and Abdallah, Tarek and Bray, Robert, The Impact of Market Growth on Delivery Times: Evidence from JD.com (April 9, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3822881 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3822881

Vadim Glinskiy (Contact Author)

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management ( email )

2211 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL 60208
United States
8478685129 (Phone)
60201-4434 (Fax)

Tarek Abdallah

Northwestern University - Department of Operations ( email )

2211 Campus Dr
Evanston, IL 60208
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/directory/abdallah_tarek.aspx

Robert Bray

Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management ( email )

2001 Sheridan Road
Evanston, IL 60208
United States

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