Download or read book Effective Online Order Acceptance Policies for Omni Channel Fulfillment written by Su Jia and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Problem Definition: Omni-channel retailing has led to the use of traditional stores as fulfillment centers for online orders. Omni-channel fulfillment problems have two components: (1) accepting a certain number of on-line orders prior to seeing store demands, and (2) satisfying (or filling) some of these accepted on-line demands as efficiently as possible with any leftover inventory after store demands have been met. Hence, there is a fundamental trade-off between store cancellations of accepted online orders and potentially increased profits due to more acceptances of online orders. We study this joint problem of online order acceptance and fulfillment (including cancellations) to minimize total costs, including shipping charges and cancellation penalties in single-period and limited multi-period settings.Academic/Practical Relevance: Despite the growing importance of omni-channel fulfillment via online orders, our work provides the first study incorporating cancellation penalties along with fulfillment costs. Methodology: We build a two-stage stochastic model. In the first stage, the retailer sets a policy specifying which online orders it will accept. The second stage represents the process of fulfilling online orders once the uncertain quantities of in-store purchases are revealed. We analyze two classes of threshold policies that accept online orders as long as the inventories are above a global threshold, or a local threshold per region. Results: Total costs are unimodal as a function of the global threshold, and unimodal as a function of a single local threshold holding all other local thresholds at constant values, motivating a gradient search algorithm. Reformulating as an appropriate linear program with network flow structure, we estimate the derivative (using infinitesimal perturbation analysis) of the total cost as a function of the thresholds. We validate the performance of the threshold policies empirically using data from a high-end North American retailer. Our two-store experiments demonstrate that Local Thresholds perform better than Global Thresholds in a wide variety of settings. Conversely, in a narrow region with negatively correlated online demand between locations and very low shipping costs, Global Threshold outperforms Local Thresholds. A hybrid policy only marginally improves on the better of the two. In multiple periods, we study one- and two-location models and provide insights into effective solution methods for the general case.Managerial Implications: Our methods give an effective way to manage fulfillment costs for online orders, demonstrating a significant reduction compared to policies that treat each store separately, reflecting the significant advantage of incorporating shipping in computing thresholds.
Download or read book Essays on Omnichannel Sale written by Elnaz Jalilipour Alishah and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation, we study three problems related to omnichannel sale. In the first two chapters, we study omnichannel fulfillment where a retailer can use either the online or the offline channel to back up the other one by fulfilling its demand, because of stockout or low inventory availability. In the last chapter, we study an incentive problem where sales agents compete for a common customer base. This problem is loosely related to similar problems in omnichannel sales – when an online order is filled by an offline store, or vice versa, how should sales credit be shared? In the first chapter, we study store fulfillment strategy of an omnichannel retailer that would like to leverage its established offline retail channel infrastructure to capture online sales after stockout. We consider a single newsvendor-type product that is sold in both online and offline channels to non-overlapping markets with independent Poisson demand. The offline store can fulfill online demand at an additional handling and fulfillment cost, k, but not vice versa. We characterize the optimal rationing policy which determines whether online demand should be fulfilled or not given the remaining time and inventory. Due to the challenges of implementing the optimal policy, we further propose two simple and effective heuristics. We also show that integrating the rationing policy into retailer’s higher-level inventory stocking and supply chain design decisions can have a significant impact on the retailer’s inventory level and profitability. As a result, we propose an integrated policy, where the retailer builds separate inventory stocks for each channel but can use the offline inventory to back up online sales, subject to a rationing heuristic. In the second chapter, we study discounted home delivery strategy of an omnichannel retailer that would like to leverage its online channel to help with offline sales when offline store has limited inventory. We consider a single newsvendor-type product that is sold in both online and offline channels to non-overlapping markets with independent Poisson demand. Store has option to offer customers discount d to incentivize them to accept home delivery of item rather than taking an inventory unit from the store. We assume customers are heterogeneous in their discount sensitivity, ranging from price sensitive to leadtime sensitive. We characterize the optimal dynamic discounting policy which determines at any point in season whether the offline store should offer discount or not, and if yes, the optimal discount level. Again, due to the challenges of implementing the optimal policy, we propose two simple and effective heuristics. We conduct an extensive numerical study and find that retailers can considerably benefit from discounted home delivery policy. In the last chapter, we study sales agent’s competition for a common customer base when sales agents are heavily paid by commission. We assume agents can affect customers perceived service quality through their service time. We build a simple model that captures agents time and quality trade off while competing for a common customer base. We assume that the agent’s service time can increase sales probability, but the agents incur cost for their effort. We show that agent’s speed up in the decentralized setting, in comparison to the central solution, which results in lower expected sale for the system. We suggest financial, operational, and informational tools that can align agent’s incentive with that of the service provider’s.
Download or read book Inventory Fulfillment Strategies for an Omni Channel Retailer written by Elnaz Jalilipour Alishah and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper, we study the fulfillment strategies of an omni-channel retailer that would like to leverage its established offline retail channel infrastructure to help its online sales. We consider a single newsvendor-type product that is sold in both online and offline channels to non-overlapping markets with independent Poisson demand. The offline store can fulfill online demand at an additional handling and fulfillment cost, k, but not vice versa. The retailer makes decisions at three different levels: 1) at the strategic level the retailer must establish a fulfillment structure between the two channels in terms of where to stock inventory in the two channels, 2) at the tactical level, the retailer decides how much inventory to have for each channel before the season starts, 3) at the operational level throughout the season, as demand unfolds and inventory depletes, the retailer makes rationing decision about whether to use offline inventory to fill online order at any moment. We build separate and integrated models to study these decisions, and find that the optimal rationing decision has a threshold-based structure that depends critically on k and the mix of demand between the two channels. Two simple rationing heuristics are proposed and shown to be effective. Furthermore, integrating the rationing policy into higher-level decisions, we show that it can have significant impact on the retailer's stocking and fulfillment structure decisions. As a result, we propose an integrated policy, where the retailer builds separate inventory stocks for each channel but can use the offline inventory to back up online sales, subject to a rationing heuristic, is proved to be simple, effective, and robust. We discuss the various practical implications of our findings.
Download or read book Multi Item Online Order Fulfillment written by Yanyang Zhao and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The boom of e-commerce in the globe in recent years has expedited the expansion of fulfillment infrastructures by e-retailers. While e-retailers are building more warehouses to offer faster delivery service than ever, the associated fulfillment costs have skyrocketed over the past decade. In this paper, we study the problem of minimizing fulfillment costs, in which an e-retailer must decide which warehouse(s) to fulfill each order from, subject to warehouses' inventory constraints. The e-retailer can split an order, at an additional cost, and fulfill it from different warehouses. It is notoriously challenging to make effective real-time fulfillment decisions at the occurrence of order split, which has become a major problem for e-retailers.We focus on a two-layer distribution network that has been implemented in practice by major e-retailers. We analyze the performance of fulfillment policies that do not rely on demand forecasts. We show that, under an assumption that aligns with the practice of most e-retailers, a myopic policy achieves a constant performance ratio compared to an optimal clairvoyant algorithm. We further show that this ratio is tight. More generally, we characterize the performance guarantees of the myopic policy in terms of the cost parameters of the model. Finally, we complement our theoretical results by conducting a numerical study and demonstrate the good performance of the myopic policy.
Download or read book Optimizing Omni Channel Fulfillment with Store Transfers written by Joydeep Paul and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The presence of different distribution channels in omni-channel retail makes the fulfillment process challenging. When consumers can buy online and pick up their purchased goods at a store, the stores are often visited by a vehicle that supplies the pick-up points (PUPs) and by a vehicle that replenishes the store's inventory. We study the benefit of exploiting any spare capacity in the vehicles replenishing store inventories to reduce online order fulfillment cost by transferring online orders to these vehicles at one or more of the stores visited. This involves choosing transfer locations and the set of stores whose online orders are transferred at these locations so as to minimize the online order fulfillment cost. We present a mixed integer linear programming model as well as an effective and efficient heuristic for solving this problem. An extensive computational study shows that significant benefits can be achieved by sharing capacity across the two channels.
Download or read book Real Time Omnichannel Fulfillment Optimization written by Zuguang Gao and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To successfully implement an omnichannel fulfillment strategy, it is important to protect offline customers from stock-outs due to over-fulfillment of online customers. A natural question is when to fulfill online orders by using in-store inventory. In practice, retailers usually implement a so-called booking limit algorithm that imposes a threshold (i.e., booking limit) on the maximum number of online orders of a product that can be fulfilled from stores, and this booking limit is usually static. In this paper, we aim to theoretically quantify the performance of online booking limit algorithms in the context of omnichannel fulfillment. We first prove that for the continuous version of the problem where partial fulfillment is allowed, a booking limit algorithm with static booking limits can achieve tight competitive ratio when initial inventory is identical across stores, which extends the celebrated tightness result of booking limit algorithms in the context of single-leg two-fare revenue management studied by Ball and Queyranne (2009) from one dimension to higher dimensions. We then show that static booking limit algorithms cannot achieve tight competitive ratio when initial inventory is non-identical even for the two-store setting, and develop a more sophisticated algorithm where booking limits can be adjusted over time based on realized demands via solving a math program. This adaptive booking limit algorithm can achieve tight competitive ratio. To extend our analysis and algorithm to the discrete setting, we propose a novel online rounding scheme, and prove that the expected profit of this “randomized booking limit” algorithm exactly matches the corresponding deterministic fractional algorithm. Finally, we conduct a concise numerical study to demonstrate the performance of booking limit algorithms under realistic (non-worst-case) demand sequences.
Download or read book Operations in an Omnichannel World written by Santiago Gallino and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world of retailing has changed dramatically in the past decade. Sales originating at online channels have been steadily increasing, and even for sales transacted at brick-and-mortar channels, a much larger fraction of sales is affected by online channels in different touch points during the customer journey. Shopper behavior and expectations have been evolving along with the growth of digital channels, challenging retailers to redesign their fulfillment and execution processes, to better serve their customers. This edited book examines the challenges and opportunities arising from the shift towards omni- channel retail. We examine these issues through the lenses of operations management, emphasizing the supply chain transformations associated with fulfilling an omni-channel demand. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, “Omni-channel business models”, we present four studies that explore how retailers are adjusting their fundamental business models to the new omni-channel landscape. The second part, “Data-driven decisions in an omni-channel world”, includes five chapters that study the evolving data opportunities enabled by omni-channel retail and present specific examples of data-driven analyses. Finally, in the third part, “Case studies in Omni-channel retailing”, we include four studies that provide a deep dive into how specific industries, companies and markets are navigating the omni-channel world. Ultimately, this book introduces the reader to the fundamentals of operations in an omni-channel context and highlights the different innovative research ideas on the topic using a variety of methodologies.
Download or read book Logistics and Retail Management written by John Fernie and published by Kogan Page Publishers. This book was released on 2014-04-03 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 21st century has witnessed important changes in retail logistics. Supply chain managers are presented with key challenges as retailers have recognised the strategic role that supply chains play in cost reduction and customer service. The 4th edition of Logistics and Retail Management has been substantially updated to take account of these recent developments in retail logistics. Logistics and Retail Management provides the most up-to-date thinking in retail supply chain management, reflecting the changing needs of the global marketplace and the challenges faced by retailers in the 21st century. With contributions from acclaimed academics and practitioners, it covers global logistics, fashion logistics, e-logistics and green supply chains. The 4th edition features brand new chapters on supply chain management in international fashion and corporate social responsibility in the textile supply chain.
Download or read book Customer Engagement Marketing written by Robert W. Palmatier and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a synthesis of research perspectives on customer engagement through a collection of chapters from thought leaders. It identifies cutting-edge metrics for capturing and measuring customer engagement and highlights best practices in implementing customer engagement marketing strategies. Responding to the rapidly changing business landscape where consumers are more connected, accessible, and informed than ever before, many firms are investing in customer engagement marketing. The book will appeal to academics, practitioners, consultants, and managers looking to improve customer engagement.
Download or read book Omni Channel Retail and the Supply Chain written by Paul Myerson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Omni-Channel Retail and the Supply Chain The days of going to the local department store to buy a television, view the options available, and make a purchase now seem "quaint." The emergence of the internet, smartphones, social media, and other technologies has opened a world of new options for consumers (and businesses) to review, research, and buy online with an ever-increasing array of delivery options. The emergence of e-commerce has resulted in what is commonly known today as "omni-channel" marketing, in which customers engage with companies in a variety of ways, including in a physical store or online via websites and mobile apps. This process puts the supply chain "front and center," as consumers are increasingly demanding and browsing, buying, and returning goods through various channels, not just the traditional "brick and mortar" way. To accomplish this with high levels of service while remaining profitable requires real-time visibility of inventory across the supply chain and a single view of consumers as they continuously move from one channel to another. While this is a boon to consumers, it has made the already complex global supply chain even more challenging to manage. On top of that, the 2020 Covid19 pandemic has accelerated this omni-channel retail trend, as consumers need even more ways to order and additional options for last-mile delivery, such as curbside pickup. Covid19 has exposed a lack of flexibility and readiness, resulting in shortages of everything from toilet paper and meats to personal protective equipment (PPE) and ventilators. It has been a real-life example of the "bullwhip effect," where variability at the consumer end of the supply chain results in increased variability as one goes upstream towards distributors, manufacturers, and suppliers. This results in shortages, misallocations, and increased costs. No longer can a manufacturer, distributor, or retailer of consumer products just "fill the pipeline" and wait for orders to come in. Now, they must anticipate various purchases and delivery items, while at the same time minimizing costs. To do this is no easy task, requiring a Lean, agile, and responsive supply chain. Until now, there was no existing "playbook" for organizations to navigate their way through this new world. This book describes the impact of omni-channel marketing on the supply chain and logistics functions, and is intended to help management meet the needs of not only today’s ever-changing world but to anticipate what may be required in the future to achieve superior customer service, profitability, and a competitive advantage.
Download or read book Retail 101 The Guide to Managing and Marketing Your Retail Business written by Nicole Reyhle and published by McGraw Hill Professional. This book was released on 2014-07-04 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: YOU CAN COMPETE WITH THE BIG-BOX STORES! Whether you're a seasoned merchant or retail newbie, Retail 101 is the guide you need to successfully manage, market, and grow your retail business, brick and mortar or online. From two of today's top retail thought leaders, Retail 101 serves both as a strategic planning guide and as a hands-on practical reference that answers your critical questions along the way. "The ultimate how-to guide for independent retailers. Each chapter addresses a vital ingredient for retail success, including helpful ideas, useful lists, and action guides." -- Ted Teele, Chief Executive Officer, SnapRetail "While small retailers may feel like an endangered species, those who read this practical guidebook to retail survival will come away confident that they have unique assets they can turn into sustainable profits." -- Molly Love Rogers, President and CEO of Internet Retailer "If you've ever felt alone or frustrated building your business, read this book today!" -- Joe Abraham, founder of BOSI Global, author of Entrepreneurial DNA
Download or read book Retail Buying written by Richard Clodfelter and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The best retail buying book available. It combines concepts with actual calculations. This provides you with a better understanding of the topics." Katherine Annette Burnsed, University of South Carolina, USA Learn the skills needed to become a successful buyer in any area of retail. The book has step-by-step instructions for typical buying tasks, such as identifying and understanding potential customers, creating a six-month merchandising plan, and developing sales forecasts. It covers math concepts throughout and shows you how to analyze and interpret data with practice problems to prepare you for the profession. You'll also learn about important retailing trends, including global buying and sourcing, omni-channel retailing, online retailing, mobile technologies, and social media in case studies. STUDIO resources include: - Chapter self-quiz questions with scored results and personalized study tips - Glossary flashcards help build industry vocabulary - Downloadable Excel spreadsheets to complete the end of chapter Spreadsheet Skills exercises and assignments - Printable worksheets featuring step-by-step solutions to common retail buying math problems - Links to author-curated videos showing retail math concepts and formulas PLEASE NOTE: Purchasing or renting this ISBN does not include access to the STUDIO resources that accompany this text. To receive free access to the STUDIO content with new copies of this book, please refer to the book + STUDIO access card bundle ISBN 9781501334276.
Download or read book Harnessing Omni Channel Marketing Strategies for Fashion and Luxury Brands written by Wilson Ozuem and published by Universal-Publishers. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a contemporary theoretical insight into the fashion and luxury industry, addressing potential gray areas within the literature. The authors analyze the luxury and fashion industry using multiple perspectives, allowing for a critical comprehensive overview of the phenomenon across diverse streams. The book provides insight into fashion and luxury retailing in the context of both online and brick and mortar retailers based on a variety of market scenarios. It deciphers the rationale of customer behavioral and decision making in online and offline luxury and fashion purchasing contexts. It provides an overview of the challenges that the industry faces with the advent of the evolving omni-channel environment. The multiple theoretical and practical nuances of the fashion and luxury industry are presented. In this sense, the book is a fundamental reference point for the students and academics. This book will be of interest to practitioners in the fashion and luxury retailing sectors. Also, many policy makers will find the conceptual and exploratory insight of this book relevant to their organizational and retailing policies. The new knowledge that is produced in this book is a ground breaker in the fashion and luxury literature. It offers insight from both theoretical and practical perspectives from both retailer and customer perspectives.
Download or read book Research Methodologies in Supply Chain Management written by Herbert Kotzab and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-01-16 with total page 616 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For reseach in all subjects and among different philisopical paradigms, research methodologies form one of the key issues to rely on. This volume brings a series of papers together, which present different research methodologies as applied in supply chain management. This comprises review oriented papers that look at what kind of methodologies have been applied, as well as methodological papers discussing new developments needed to successfully conduct research in supply chain management. The third group is made up of applications of the respective methodologies, which serve as examples on how the different methodological approaches can be applied. All papers have undergone a review process to ensure their quality. Therefore, we hope that this book will serve as a valid source for current and future researchers in the field. While the workshop on “Research Methodologies in Supply Chain Management” took place at the Supply Chain Management Center, Carl von Ossietzky Univ- sity in Oldenburg, Germany, it is based on a collaboration with the Supply Chain Management Group of the Department of Operations Management at the Cop- hagen Business School and the Department of Production Management at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. We would like to thank all those who contributed to the workshop and this book.
Download or read book Managing Customer Experiences in an Omnichannel World written by Taşkın Dirsehan and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-26 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Managing Customer Experiences in an Omnichannel World explores how organizations integrating both the physical and virtual environments for consumers will enable them to effectively manage the customer experience.
Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Supply Chain Management written by Thomas Y. Choi and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-08-30 with total page 815 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Supply chain management contends with structures and processes for delivering goods and services to customers. It addresses the core functions of connected businesses to meet downstream demand. This innovative volume provides an authoritative and timely guide to the overarching issues that are ubiquitous throughout the supply chain. In particular, it addresses emerging issues that are applicable across supply chains--such as data science, financial flows, human capital, internet technologies, risk management, cyber security, and supply networks. With chapters from an international roster of leading scholars in the field, the Oxford Handbook of Supply Chain Management is a necessary resource for all students and researchers of the field as well as for forward-thinking practitioners.
