Abstract 

Background: E-commerce has revolutionized customer expectations in logistics, leading to a significant shift in how products are delivered and services are provided. Delivering services that are fast, reliable, transparent and digitally visible has become an increasing expectation of customers. Meanwhile, logistics companies function in an environment of constant change, with the need to coordinate and rely on a system of transport, as well as the constraints of digital systems, staffing and coordination. This poses continuous challenges to ecommerce logistics between standard promises and actual performance. 

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how customer delivery expectations are constructed and managed within e-commerce logistics operations and how operational practices, communication structures, and digital systems influence delivery performance and the alignment between delivery promises and operational realities. Furthermore, the study aims to understand how operational employees perceive and experience the gap between customer expectations and actual delivery outcomes. 

Method: This study follows a qualitative single-case study design focusing on Bring’s ecommerce logistics operations in Sweden. The empirical data were collected through semistructured interviews with ten participants representing managerial, operational, transport, customer-facing, and technical roles within the logistics network. The collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis involving open coding, second-order theme development, and aggregate dimensions connected to the research questions. 

Findings: The findings show that customer delivery expectations are increasingly shaped through tracking systems, automated notifications, and digitally communicated delivery promises. However, operational delivery performance is influenced by complex interdependencies between transport coordination, staffing conditions, parcel volumes, communication processes, and digital synchronization limitations. The study further demonstrates that the gap between delivery promises and operational realities is not viewed by employees as an occasional operational 2 problem, but rather as a structural condition embedded within e-commerce logistics systems. Employees continuously experience operational pressure as they attempt to maintain standardized customer expectations under unstable operational conditions. 

Conclusion: The study contributes to the understanding of expectation management in ecommerce logistics by demonstrating how customer expectations are socially and technologically constructed through socio-technical systems rather than shaped solely by customer preferences. The findings further highlight how digital visibility systems simultaneously enhance customer trust while increasing sensitivity toward operational deviations. The study contributes to logistics and service expectation literature by explaining the structural tensions between digitally reinforced delivery promises and dynamic logistics operations.