Determination of in-store online fulfillment location and delivery area for small and medium-sized supermarkets in underserved regions

초록

Despite the recent increase in online grocery shopping demand, same-day online grocery delivery services in Korea are limited to major metropolitan areas. There are still many underserved areas in small cities and rural areas where same-day and early morning grocery delivery services are unavailable. This study aims to provide in-store online grocery fulfillment strategies utilizing small and medium-sized supermarkets in underserved areas. We performed a Recency, Frequency, and Monetary (RFM) analysis using supermarket sales data to identify supermarket locations in five-digit postal code districts suitable for online fulfillment. Stores with recent order activity and high recency scores were considered to have strong online sales capabilities. Additionally, stores with high monetary sales volume and high frequency were deemed to have high inventory turnover, indicating strong sales capabilities both online and offline. We identified the top 40% of high-demand areas for online grocery orders from Company A. Using the GIS spatial overlay method, we identified the in-store fulfillment store locations (postal code districts) that met the above two conditions and were at least 1 km away from the competing large hypermarket stores. Finally, the same-day delivery service areas were determined by identifying the 2 km delivery areas along the streets from each in-store fulfillment location.