Distribution system design for omnichannel retailing

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Date
2019
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University of Alabama Libraries
Abstract

Omnichannel retailing - serving customers via a combination of physical stores and web-based stores- offers new opportunities and forces traditional retailers to rethink their supply chain design, operational efficiency, revenue/cost streams, and operations/marketing interface. While omnichannel supply chain management has received some attention recently, the role of cross-channel fulfillment, the layout of the omnichannel retail supply chain, and revenue management considering customer channel choice behavior have not been widely studied. This dissertation investigates these three streams in omnichannel supply chain design. In the cross-channel fulfillment stream, we study the optimal supply chain design for a dual-channel retailer that combines the operations of both channels in an omnichannel environment considering demand segmentation, cost structure, and more importantly, the execution ability of the firm. We formulate this problem as a two-stage stochastic programming model and use first-order optimality conditions to study the optimal inventory replenishment decisions and omnichannel strategy decisions under perfect and imperfect demand information. For the second chapter, we extend the dual-channel setting from a single store to N retail stores. We study the transshipment problem based on a two-store case by reformulating the problem into a large scale mixed-integer linear programming model. The third chapter addresses the revenue management stream by focuses on the interface between the retailer's operations and customer's demand. Specifically, this chapter explores the right role for a physical store in an omnichannel environment for an online-first retailer. The main result relates to the trade-off between the increased profits from the newly acquired demand (from the new channel) and the increased fulfillment and operations costs from cannibalized demand.

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Electronic Thesis or Dissertation
Keywords
Operations research, Management
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