Understanding customer attitudes and behaviors towards drone food delivery services: An investigation of customer motivations and challenges

ABSTRACT

Drones in food delivery (DFD) have been getting significant attention in recent years owing to their ability to deliver food quickly without being affected by traffic, enhancing business practices. Therefore, this study attempts to understand consumer desires and intentions to adopt DFD in the shed of behavioral reasoning theory. The proposed framework was examined using data from 394 DFD users via an online survey. The findings established that perceived environmental effectiveness impacts reasons for, reasons against, and desire. The reason for adoption positively influences desire and intention. In contrast, reasons against adoption negatively affect intention. Furthermore, we found that personal innovativeness in technology moderates the association between the reason for and intention. The tradition barrier also moderates the association between reason against and desire for DFD. Consequently, DFD platforms should resolve consumers’ concerns and conduct awareness programs to promote the potential benefits of drone deliveries to attract consumers.

近年来,无人机送餐(DFD)因其能够在不受交通影响的情况下快速送餐,从而增强了商业实践,因此受到了极大的关注. 因此,本研究试图在行为推理理论的框架下,采用DFD来理解消费者的欲望和意图. 通过在线调查,使用394名DFD用户的数据对拟议的框架进行了审查. 研究结果表明,感知的环境有效性会影响支持、反对和愿望的原因. 收养的原因对欲望和意图有积极影响. 相反,反对收养的理由会对意图产生负面影响. 此外,我们发现个人在技术方面的创新性调节了原因和意图之间的联系. 传统障碍也调节了反对DFD的理由和对DFD的渴望之间的联系. 因此,DFD平台应解决消费者的担忧,并开展宣传计划,宣传无人机送货的潜在好处,以吸引消费者.

KEYWORDS:

• Drone food delivery
• behavioral reasoning theory
• personal innovativeness in technology
• self-promotion
• perceived environmental effectiveness
• delivery risk

Acknowledgments

The research was supported by Key Project of National Social Science Foundation of China (21AGL014).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Compliance with ethical standards

This research was conducted along with the ethical standard of the institutional review board of universities/authorities and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1964, including updated recommendations.

Data availability statement

The data can be provided on reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Informed consent

Informed consent was attained from all individual respondents involved in the study.