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This paper investigate how fit uncertainty impacts product return costs in online retailing and how digital product fitting, a pre-sales fitting practice, can reduce fit uncertainty.

The paper analyzes the current performance of a retailer's e-commerce and return operations by estimating costs generated by product returns, including product handling costs, tied-up capital, inventory holding costs, transportation costs, and order-picking costs. The estimated costs were built on 2,229 return transactions from a Scandinavian fashion footwear retailer. A digital product fitting technology was tested with the retailer’s products and resulted in estimations on how such technology could affect product returns.

The cost of a return is approximately 17% of the prime cost. The major cost elements are product handling costs and transportation costs, which together amount to 72% of the total costs. If well calibrated, the fitting technology can cut fit-related return costs by up to 80%. The findings show how customers reacted to the fitting technology: it was unable to verify fit every time, but it serves as a useful and effective support tool for customers when placing orders.

Virtual fit verification using digital product fitting is key to retailers to reduce fit-related returns. Digital product fitting using three-dimensional scanning is more appropriate for some products, but it is unsuitable for products that are difficult to measure and scan.

The paper contributes an empirical estimate of retail supply chain costs associated with fit uncertainty, as well as theoretical understanding of the role of pre-sales fit verification in avoiding product returns.

A number of literature contributions have underlined the importance of developing value-added logistics activities or VALS in order to help improve customers’ satisfaction. However, there is usually very little attention given regarding where to perform these VALS. This study aims to: (1) identify a comprehensive set of factors which may influence the location of VALS, (2) to analyze to what extent those factors influence location decisions, and (3) to distinguish the determinants behind the location choices for distribution centers and for the kind of VALS that will be developed in these distribution centers.

In this paper, we will present a conceptual framework on the locations of VALS in view of the identifying determinants for assigning VALS to logistical centers. We argue that the optimal location of VALS is determined by complex interactions between the determinants at the level of the choice of a distribution system, distribution center location factors, and different logistical characteristics regarding products.

The technique of cross-docking is attractive to organisations because of the lower warehousing and transportation (consolidated shipments) costs. This concept is based on the fast movement of products. Accordingly, cross-docking operations should be monitored carefully and accurately. Several factors in cross-docking operations can be impacted by uncertain sources that can lead to inaccuracy and inefficiency of this process. Although many papers have been published on different aspects of cross-docking, there is a need for a comprehensive review to investigate the sources of uncertainties in cross-docking. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to analyse and categorise sources of uncertainty in cross-docking operations. A systematic review has been undertaken to analyse methods and techniques used in cross-docking research.

A systematic review has been undertaken to analyse methods and techniques used in cross-docking research.

The findings show that existing research has limitations on the applicability of the models developed to solve problems due to unrealistic or impractical assumption. Further research directions have been discussed to fill the gaps identified in the literature review.

There has been an increasing number of papers about cross-docking since 2010, among which three are literature reviews on cross-docking from 2013 to 2016. There is an absence of study in the current literature to critically review and identify the sources of uncertainty related to cross-docking operations. Without the proper identification and discussion of these uncertainties, the optimisation models developed to improve cross-docking operations may be inherently impractical and unrealistic.

This study examines the relationship between demand forecasting error and retail inventory management in an uncertain supplier yield context. Replenishment is segmented into off-season and peak-season, with the former characterized by longer lead times and higher supply uncertainty. In contrast, the latter incurs higher acquisition costs but ensures certain supply, with the retailer's purchase volume aligning with the acquired volume. Retailers can replenish in both phases, receiving goods before the sales season. This paper focuses on the impact of the retailer's demand forecasting bias on their sales period profits for both phases.

This study adopts a data-driven research approach by drawing inspiration from real data provided by a cooperating enterprise to address research problems. Mathematical modeling is employed to solve the problems, and the resulting optimal strategies are tested and validated in real-world scenarios. Furthermore, the applicability of the optimal strategies is enhanced by incorporating numerical simulations under other general distributions.

The study's findings reveal that a greater disparity between predicted and actual demand distributions can significantly reduce the profits that a retailer-supplier system can earn, with the optimal purchase volume also being affected. Moreover, the paper shows that the mean of the forecasting error has a more substantial impact on system revenue than the variance of the forecasting error. Specifically, the larger the absolute difference between the predicted and actual means, the lower the system revenue. As a result, managers should focus on improving the quality of demand forecasting, especially the accuracy of mean forecasting, when making replenishment decisions.

This study established a two-stage inventory optimization model that simultaneously considers random yield and demand forecast quality, and provides explicit expressions for optimal strategies under two specific demand distributions. Furthermore, the authors focused on how forecast error affects the optimal inventory strategy and obtained interesting properties of the optimal solution. In particular, the property that the optimal procurement quantity no longer changes with increasing forecast error under certain conditions is noteworthy, and has not been previously noted by scholars. Therefore, the study fills a gap in the literature.

This study established a two-stage inventory optimization model that simultaneously considers random yield and demand forecast quality, and provides explicit expressions for optimal strategies under two specific demand distributions. Furthermore, the authors focused on how forecast error affects the optimal inventory strategy and obtained interesting properties of the optimal solution. In particular, the property that the optimal procurement quantity no longer changes with increasing forecast error under certain conditions is noteworthy, and has not been previously noted by scholars. Therefore, the study fills a gap in the literature.

The aim of this article is to identify the issues of short food supply chains (SFSCs) in three countries of Central and Eastern Europe, i.e. Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, to compare the barriers to shortening food supply chains and to indicate business models for short supply chains.

Within the AgroBRIDGES project, the authors organized local co-creation workshops from August to September 2021 in 12 European regions and countries, engaging 150+ agrifood stakeholders of the project’s local communities.

The development potential of SFSCs in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland is high and seems to be growing every year. Currently, the development potential of SFSCs in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland is stimulated more by social trends than by public support. Traditional business models based on the distribution of food products through local and regional markets have a definitely diminishing potential.

Although this article covers an existing gap in the literature, it also has several limitations that may serve as an inspiration for future research. First, the results draw on a sample of agrifood value chain stakeholders in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland; hence, the findings might be industry specific. Therefore, future studies should explore this topic on wider target groups or different industries. Moreover, the method is qualitative and could be supplemented with additional quantitative analysis of similar tools or the experience of other agrifood companies from European countries.

The article seeks to build bridges between consumers and producers by supporting SFSCs through a systemic, holistic and multi-actor approach.

The study elaborates on the under-researched topic of SFSCs in the context of barriers to shortening food supply chains and business models for short supply chains in Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.

The purpose of this paper is to re-examine the extant research on last-mile logistics (LML) models and consider LML’s diverse roots in city logistics, home delivery and business-to-consumer distribution, and more recent developments within the e-commerce digital supply chain context. The review offers a structured approach to what is currently a disparate and fractured field in logistics.

The systematic literature review examines the interface between e-commerce and LML. Following a protocol-driven methodology, combined with a “snowballing” technique, a total of 47 articles form the basis of the review.

The literature analysis conceptualises the relationship between a broad set of contingency variables and operational characteristics of LML configuration (push-centric, pull-centric, and hybrid system) via a set of structural variables, which are captured in the form of a design framework. The authors propose four future research areas reflecting likely digital supply chain evolutions.

To circumvent subjective selection of articles for inclusion, all papers were assessed independently by two researchers and counterchecked with two independent logistics experts. Resulting classifications inform the development of future LML models.

The design framework of this study provides practitioners insights on key contingency and structural variables and their interrelationships, as well as viable configuration options within given boundary conditions. The reformulated knowledge allows these prescriptive models to inform practitioners in their design of last-mile distribution.

Improved LML performance would have positive societal impacts in terms of service and resource efficiency.

This paper provides the first comprehensive review on LML models in the modern e-commerce context. It synthesises knowledge of LML models and provides insights on current trends and future research directions.

Ongoing automation processes may render a fair share of the existing jobs redundant or change their nature. This begs the question to what extent employees affected invest in training in order to strengthen their labour market position in times of uncertainty. Given the different national labour market regimes and institutions, there may be an important geographical dimension to the opportunities to cope with the challenges set by automation. The purpose of this study is to address both issues.

Using data from the 2016 European labour Force Survey, the authors estimate with logit and multi-level regression analyses how the automation risk of a worker's job is associated with the propensity of following non-formal education/training. The authors allow this relationship to vary across European countries.

The results show that employees in jobs vulnerable to automation invest relatively little in training. Also, there are significant differences across Europe in both the provision of training in general and the effect of automation on training provision.

While there is quite a lot of research on the structural labour market effects of automation, relatively little is known about the actions that employees take to deal with the uncertainty they are faced with. This article aims to contribute to our understanding of such mechanisms underlying the structural macro-level labour-market dynamics.

Whilst green distribution alternatives for consumers have the potential to decrease environmental impact from logistics, retailers struggle to provide such alternatives. The purpose of this paper is to increase the understanding of the factors that hinder retailers from offering green distribution alternatives to consumers.

The paper relies on a multiple case-study of three cases, with one retailer constituting each case. Semi-structured interviews with seven respondents and visits to the retailers' checkouts were used for data collection.

The offering of green distribution alternatives is a complex task for retailers, with barriers related to six categories (organisational, financial, retailer-logistic service provider (LSP) market, retailer-consumer market, governmental and technological barriers) obstructing the way forward. A process towards offering green distribution services, including barriers and potential mitigation strategies, is suggested.

The study is limited to a Swedish context, and further research could consider how barriers would manifest themselves in countries with other characteristics.

A framework with barriers and mitigation strategies offers guidance for managers within e-commerce.

The greening of logistics is an important quest towards world-wide sustainability goals, and this paper contributes with an increased understanding of how to decrease environmental impact from e-commerce distribution.

The paper is one of few that takes the consumer side of the greening of logistics into account, thus contributing with valuable perspectives to this scarce body of literature.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research question: how can intermediaries contribute to social impact creation through their interventions at different levels of distribution networks in the base of the pyramid (BoP) markets?

The paper adopts an embedded case study of an intermediary organization. The analysis focuses on the intervention of the intermediary on the distribution stages of supply chains in four different projects in the food sector in Ethiopia, Benin, Nigeria and Bangladesh.

The embedded case study reveals essential formal and informal roles undertaken by the intermediary organization to develop decentralized distribution networks based on local micro-entrepreneurs. The study proposes that efforts undertaken by the intermediaries toward knowledge sharing and capacity building among partners can enable the adoption of pro-poor strategies across the supply chain. Moreover, hybrid intermediaries can act as “guardians” of the mutual value creation approach since one of their key roles is to advocate the needs of the BoP.

Important implications for improving nutrition and food security in the BoP markets are developed based on the empirical findings. The findings open avenues for further research into the antecedents of retention rates in distribution networks based on local micro-entrepreneurs.

Findings have implications for different types of BoP initiatives by highlighting how intermediary organizations intervene to develop distribution models with a special focus on social impact.

This paper fills an important research gap by discussing social impact aspects in BoP supply chains by adopting the perspective of intermediary organizations.

The purpose of this paper is to review the relevant literature in order to identify trends and suggest some possible directions for future research in the framework of humanitarian aid distribution logistics with accessibility constraints.

The authors developed a systematic literature review to study the state of the art on distribution logistics considering accessibility constraints. The electronic databases used were Web of science, Scopus, Science Direct, Jstor, Emerald, EBSCO, Scielo and Redalyc. As a result, 49 articles were reviewed in detail.

This study identified some gaps, as well as some research opportunities. The main conclusions are the need for further studies on the interrelationships and hierarchies of multiple actors, explore intermodality, transshipment options and redistribution relief goods to avoid severe shortages in some nodes and excess inventory in others, studies of the vulnerability of transport networks, correlational analysis of road failures and other future lines.

The bibliography is limited to peer-reviewed academic journals due to their academic relevance, accessibility and ease of searching. Most of the studies included in the review were conducted in high-income countries, which may limit the generalizability of the results to low-income countries. However, the authors focused on databases covering important journals on humanitarian logistics.

This paper contextualises and synthesises research into humanitarian aid distribution logistics with accessibility constrains, highlights key themes and suggests areas for further research.