The reception box impact on home delivery efficiency in the e‐grocery business

Home delivery of groceries is not yet a very popular service among consumers. One reason for the slow progress has been the time‐consuming and expensive ordering process. In recent years, Internet‐based solutions have solved most of the problems related to the order transaction process – making ordering simpler, cheaper and faster. However, there are still a lot of unsolved problems in the e‐grocery business. One of the biggest obstacles is inefficient home delivery. This paper examines how different solutions for goods receipt affect home‐delivery efficiency. Different alternatives for receiving the goods are presented and the service levels of these concepts are described from the consumer’s point of view. In addition, the costs for the e‐grocer are studied. The efficiency of using a reception box is demonstrated by simulating two alternative receiving concepts.