Last mile fulfilment and distribution in omni-channel grocery retailing: a strategic planning framework

Abstract

Purpose For traditional grocery retailers, the growing importance of online sales means creating new logistics models for omni-channel (OC) management. Due to these transformational changes, retail research and practice are lacking a comprehensive view on integrated fulfilment and distribution concepts for home and store deliveries as they have evolved recently. This paper develops a planning framework for last mile order fulfilment in OC grocery retailing and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of different design concepts. Design/methodology/approach The findings were developed and evaluated by means of explorative interviews with grocery retail and logistics experts. Additionally, key literature on last mile order fulfilment and retail supply chain management was reviewed to supplement the integrated OC grocery operations planning framework. Findings OC logistics planning can be structured into back-end fulfilment (e.g. warehouse and in-store picking) and last mile distribution concepts (e.g. attended and unattended home delivery). The design choices depend on country specifics (e.g. population density), retailer specifics (e.g. capability for cross-channel process integration) and customer behaviour (e.g. possibility of unattended home delivery). The application areas and their contextual factors are discussed for each design parameter. Practical implications The last mile fulfilment options identified can be applied to pinpoint the necessary steps for further optimizing OC integration. Grocers can gain insights into current fulfilment concepts used in different contexts. This architecture also forms the foundation for further research on decision support systems. Originality/value The coherent planning framework summarizes the general design options for last mile order fulfilment arising from new requirements for OC fulfilment.

Crowd logistics: an opportunity for more sustainable urban freight transport?

“…The distinction can be made between intra-urban, inter-urban and global scale on the one hand [23] and regional, national, international and worldwide scale on the other hand [2]. Literature generally limits the CL concept to city distribution and last mile logistics [2,3,6,22,24,25,30]. The interviewed practitioners, however, expressed interest in concepts in which city logistics is just one component and even concepts that exclude the last mile.…”

Consumer-driven e-commerce

“…Finally, while recent articles have started to examine the effects of online and offline channel integrations (e.g. Gallino and Moreno, 2014), limited contributions have been made to date to understand how retailers integrate their online and offline operations and resources to deliver a seamless experience for consumers (Piotrowicz and Cuthbertson, 2014;Hübner, Kuhn and Wollenburg, 2016). We propose revisiting the pull-centric system variants in the context of active consumer participation to understand the approaches retailers can use to attract consumers to their stores.…”

“…However, existing definitions (details available from the authors) appear incomplete in capturing the complexities driven by e-commerce, such as omission in defining an origin (Esper et al, 2003;Kull et al, 2007;Gevaers et al, 2011;Ehmke and Mattfeld, 2012;Dablanc et al, 2013;Harrington et al, 2016); exclusion of in-store order fulfilment processes as a fulfilment option (Hübner, Kuhn and Wollenburg, 2016); and/or non-specification of the destination (or end point), including failure to capture the collection delivery point (CDP) as a reception option (Esper et al, 2003; 309 Consumerdriven e-commerce Kull et al, 2007). Without a consistent and robust definition of LML, the design of LML models is problematic.…”

“…This type of study is critical for understanding the impact of crowdsourcing models on retail operations and for promoting their adoption. Second, papers addressing omnichannel issues (Hübner, Kuhn and Wollenburg, 2016;Hübner, Wollenburg and Holzapfel, 2016;Ishfaq et al, 2016) are emerging. The emergence of new omnichannel distribution models demands theoretical development and the identification of new design variables.…”

“…Forman et al, 2009;Gallino and Moreno, 2014). Additionally, a few studies used case research to provide operational guidance via framework development, such as last-mile order fulfilment (Hübner, Kuhn and Wollenburg, 2016) and LML design, to capture the interests of various stakeholders (Harrington et al, 2016). …”