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Introduction
Back in 2014, the Indian e-commerce market was valued at US$17.6bn and was expected to reach US$136bn by 2020 with a 40% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) (Doger and Tanwar, 2015). E-tailing is a part of e-commerce; it offers items and administrations to clients through the Web without any restrictions of time and geography (Ahn et al., 2004). The e-tailing market in 2015 was valued at US$5.38bn in 2015; from 2011 to 2015, it witnessed a stupendous growth with about 59% CAGR (Bijlani and Singh, 2015). An e-tailer uses the internet as the distribution channel (Grewal et al., 2004) and thereby differs from “retailers” while procuring and delivering consumer orders (Agatz et al., 2008). In e-tailing, interactions between a customer and an e-tailing firm occur through an e-fulfillment process, first at the e-tailer’s website (online) and then for order fulfillment, which happens offline. It is thereby very important for an e-tailer to focus on e-fulfillment for customer retention and satisfaction, which transpires into customer loyalty (Heim and Sinha, 2001; Xing et al., 2011; Koufteros et al., 2014; Cho, 2015). The e-fulfillment process includes purchasing, warehousing, delivery and sales (Agatz et al., 2008); in essence, the process starts with a consumer’s online purchase and ends with the product being finally delivered (Lummus and Vokurka, 2002). Pyke et al. (2001) have segregated e-fulfillment into five distinct processes; i.e. order capturing, order processing, picking and packing, shipping, after-sales service and return handling. Recognising the anticipated growth of e-tailing and the importance of e-fulfillment, this study looks to understand the process of e-fulfillment and its relationship with post-purchase consumer behaviour measures when it configures according to different product types through a literature review.
It is important to note here that a literature review structure typically has two dimensions: a supply chain stage and a planning stage; the supply chain stage consists of sales, delivery, warehousing and purchasing and the planning stage consists of short- and long-term planning. Agatz et al. (2008), for instance, while discussing the e-fulfillment process, provided information in a multi-channel environment with managerial planning of tasks and quantitative models for e-fulfillment. Jain et al. (2017) performed a systematic literature review on e-fulfillment and identified seven dimensions (i.e. e-business...