Sustainable E-commerce and Online Marketing Research

Dear Colleagues,

We cordially invite you to contribute a paper to be included in the Special Issue “Sustainable E-commerce and Online Marketing Research” of the journal Sustainability.

E-commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods or services via the Internet. As e-commerce has continued to grow, many environmental and social concerns have arisen. For instance, e-commerce packaging uses materials that are harmful to the environment and contributes huge amounts of waste; the logistics (e.g., the last-mile delivery) generates air and noise pollution; online data transmission and storage pose new challenges for privacy protection and security; and the combination of new business models and an unclear legal environment can result in labor rights violations. Besides having to ensure economic performance, e-commerce managers must take into account the natural environment and society, and must know how to implement sustainable practices. Moreover, marketers must know how to leverage online channels to communicate with and provide value to consumers in order to achieve long-term wellbeing for all while balancing short-term profit maximization. Marketers can influence consumers and can help manage brands and product offerings in a more sustainable manner. The aim of this Special Issue of the journal is to provide researchers with a platform on which to discuss sustainability issues in the context of e-commerce and online marketing in order to help e-commerce managers and marketers work in a sustainable manner.

For this Special Issue, we welcome the submission of original research articles and reviews. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Sustainable marketplaces;
• Sustainable packaging;
• Sustainable supply chains and logistics;
• Sustainable shopping: helping customers shop sustainably;
• The impact of sustainability efforts on firm performance;
• The impact of sustainability efforts on consumer attitudes and behaviors;
• Incorporating sustainability into e-commerce/online marketing;
• The environmental and societal impacts of e-commerce/online marketing;
• Sustainable practices adopted by e-commerce companies;
• Sustainable consumer behavior;
• Solutions that can reduce over-consumption;
• Sustainable business models;
• The sharing economy;
• Platform cooperatives.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Logistics.   

Prof. Dr. Shiu-Li Huang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.