e-grocery; time window assortment; analytical model; continuous approximation
Abstract:
Online grocery services require the customer to be present at the time of delivery. The resulting time window constraints pose a major challenge to the profitability of the online grocery business model. In practice, we see great variation in the time window assortment, i.e., the set of time windows offered to customers, including long or short, many or few, overlapping or non-overlapping options. For the success of an online grocery business, it is essential to understand how these choices impact demand as well as delivery efficiency. We develop a model to evaluate time window assortments in terms of these performance metrics. The evaluation model can incorporate different types of demand functions, and it approximates the components of the delivery system through tractable functional expressions using continuous approximation. In our study, we identify and analyze fundamental trade-offs underlying the time window assortment. Our analytical results provide insights that are instructive for designing time window assortments, thus helping practitioners to align their operations strategy with relevant market conditions to become economically viable.
Dieser Eintrag ist Teil der Universitätsbibliographie.
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