THE IMPACT OF SMART WAREHOUSING AND LAST-MILE DELIVERY ON E-COMMERCE SUPPLY CHAIN PERFORMANCE: EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN USING MACHINE LEARNING ENHANCED SEM

Abstract

The e-commerce has increased the pressure on supply-chain to become faster, reliable, and responsive to customers, especially in developing economies like Pakistan. Although the previous studies have explored the field of digital transformation and technologies in logistics, there is little empirical data on how smart warehousing and last-mile delivery can be converted into performance outcomes. To fill this gap, this study examines how operational efficiency mediates the relations between digital logistics practices and e-commerce supply chain performance in which the dynamic capabilities moderate the relations. It used a quantitative cross-sectional research design. The questionnaire used to collect the data was structured, and it was carried out among e-commerce companies and logistics service providers in the country of operations, which are located in Pakistan. To test reliability, validity, mediation, moderation, and predictive power, the proposed model was tested with the help of Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) supplemented by machine-learning-enhanced analysis. These findings indicate that digital transformation (β = 0.312, p < 0.001), technology integration (β = 0.326, p < 0.001), and dynamic capabilities (β = 0.247, p < 0.001) have a significant positive effect on operational efficiency, but the organizational resources have no significant impact. Operational efficiency is a significant predictor of organizational performance ( 0.825) and customer satisfaction ( 0.826) as well as competitive advantage ( 0.774), with its predictors explaining 76.2 per cent of their variance. This paper gives credible empirical support that operational efficiency is the key enabling factor that digital logistics practices improve the performance of e-commerce. The combination of mediation and moderation through the machine-learning-enhanced SEM environment in a developing-country setting makes the study a contribution to the digital supply chain theory and provides practical implications to managers and policy-makers.

Keywords: Smart Warehousing; Last-Mile Delivery; Operational Efficiency; Dynamic Capabilities; E-commerce Supply Chain; PLS-SEM; Pakistan