The future of e-grocery. A study of the micro-fulfillment model:  with a focus on the Spanish grocery market

Cañas Verdugo, Adriana; Martínez Aldeguer, Carlota; Romero Martínez, Alba; Vila Rodríguez, Irene

The future of e-grocery. A study of the micro-fulfillment model: with a focus on the Spanish grocery market

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Cañas Verdugo, A, Martínez Aldeguer, C, Romero Martínez, A, Vila Rodríguez, I. The future of e-grocery. A study of the micro-fulfillment model: with a focus on the Spanish grocery market. 2021. handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10230/48968

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Abstract

E-commerce sales have been growing steadily for the past two decades. Remarkably, online purchases across the grocery industry have been experiencing an enormous increase, with the coronavirus pandemic boosting, even more, these growing orders. According to a report published earlier this year by Nielsen, in May, 44% of global consumers were shopping online weekly, while only 9% were regularly doing so before the pandemic. Although this fast growth has stabilized during the last months, its impact on e-grocery commerce is unquestionable: covid-19 has contributed to the decrease of in-store purchasing, accelerating e-grocery demand, and shortening the time-frame for disruptive innovation in the supply chain. This project aims to inquire into potential logistic solutions that can solve the new challenges of this era. It will be shown that, after analyzing the different distribution strategies, the micro-fulfillment model appears to have a great future projection. Combining the speed of local delivery with the efficiencies of robotics, this feasible distribution strategy achieves to reduce the distance with customers, increasing the speed of delivery and decreasing logistic costs. After the exploration of this model's benefits and limitations, this paper presents the factors that have been found to be the drivers of micro-fulfillment in the U.S., through a deep analysis of the trends in the North American e-grocery market. Lastly, it focuses on seeking similar tendencies in the Spanish market with the goal of analyzing if these are enough for the implementation of this distribution strategy.