How FreshDirect Delivers Phone and Online Grocery Orders

Posted on October 17, 2012 by bermanevansretail
Ever consider how an online order is actually delivered, especially one involving a lot of perishables? Consider the case of FreshDirect (“Groceries Delivered Direct to Your Door.”
According to a recent story in the New York Times: “Every day, thousands of New Yorkers open their doors to find cardboard boxes neatly packed with the groceries they just ordered by phone or computer from the delivery service FreshDirect. It sounds simple enough. But each of those boxes — some sent as far as Philadelphia and Stamford, Conn. — requires the collecting, shipping, and sorting of food from around the region, the country, and often the world.
Click the chart below to see a description of the very complex delivery process of FreshDirect.

Photos by Tony Cenicola; graphic by Alicia DeSantis
Post suggested by KCJ

 

Posted in Online Retailing, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Technology in Retailing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Best Buy Digs Deeper into Price Discounting

Posted on October 16, 2012 by bermanevansretail
As we’ve reported before, Best Buy is in a battle for its future. As such, the chain’s decision to be more aggressive with its holiday price-matching strategy is a tricky maneuver — and it will be tough on profit margins since Best Buy’s operating costs are higher than those of online firms that do not have stores to staff, decorate, and stock.
Ann Zimmerman, writes in the Wall Street Journal that: “Best Buy is planning to match the prices of Internet competitors such as Amazon.com this holiday season, even as it plays down its concerns over shoppers browsing gadgets in stores only to buy them for less online. The retailer says it is taking these steps to improve the percentage of people who walk into their stores and leave with a purchase — about 40% of shoppers. The electronics chain also is preparing to offer free home delivery on merchandise that is out of stock in stores, according to a person familiar with the matter, in spite of recent remarks by new chief executive Hubert Joly that ‘showrooming’ by consumers has been blown out of proportion.”
What do YOU think about this pricing approach?
Click the photo to read more from Zimmerman.

Image by Reuters
Posted in Online Retailing, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Home Depot Learns the Hard Way: Chinese Not Do-It-Yourselfers

Posted on October 15, 2012 by bermanevansretail
For decades, Atlanta-based Home Depot has focused on do-it-yourselfers (DIYers) — customers who buy products and then install them or set them up themselves. But in China, Home Depot has found that customers are not that interested in being DYIers. So, the chain is exiting the Chinese market.
As reports Laurie Burkitt reports in the Wall Street Journal: “Home Depot, in deciding to close all seven of its remaining big-box stores in China after years of losses, joins a growing list of retailers who have stumbled in China by failing to grasp the local culture and importing alien business models that are better suited to the U.S. or other countries. The largest U.S. home-improvement retailer, which entered China in 2006, has struggled to gain traction in a country where cheap labor has stunted the do-it-yourself ethos and apartment-based living leaves scarce demand for products like lumber. Home Depot conceded that it misread the country’s appetite for do-it-yourself products. ‘The market trend says this is more of a do-it-for-me culture,’ a Home Depot spokeswoman said of China.
Do you agree with Home Depot’s decision to exit China? What else could it have tried first?
Click the photo for more of Burkitt’s story.

Source: Imaginechina/Associated Press

 

Posted in Global Retailing, Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment