Online food delivery research: a systematic literature review

Purpose Online food delivery (OFD) has witnessed momentous consumer adoption in the past few years, and COVID-19, if anything, is only accelerating its growth. This paper captures numerous intricate issues arising from the complex relationship among the stakeholders because of the enhanced scale of the OFD business. The purpose of this paper is to highlight publication trends in OFD and identify potential future research themes. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a tri-method study - systematic literature review, bibliometric and thematic content analysis - of 43 articles on OFD published in 24 journals from 2015 to 2021 (March). The authors used VOSviewer to perform citation analysis. Findings Systematic literature review of the existing OFD research resulted in six potential research themes. Further, thematic content analysis synthesized and categorized the literature into four knowledge clusters, namely, (i) digital mediation in OFD, (ii) dynamic OFD operations, (iii) OFD adoption by consumers and (iv) risk and trust issues in OFD. The authors also present the emerging trends in terms of the most influential articles, authors and journals. Practical implications This paper captures the different facets of interactions among various OFD stakeholders and highlights the intricate issues and challenges that require immediate attention from researchers and practitioners. Originality/value This is one of the few studies to synthesize OFD literature that sheds light on unexplored aspects of complex relationships among OFD stakeholders through four clusters and six research themes through a conceptual framework.

Automated summary

This paper examines the publication trends in online food delivery and identifies potential future research themes. Through a systematic literature review and thematic content analysis, the research on OFD is synthesized into four knowledge clusters: digital mediation, dynamic operations, consumer adoption, and risk and trust issues.