E-grocery challenges and remedies: Global market leaders perspective

Marcia Mkansi, Chukuakadibia Eresia-Eke and Oyetola Emmanuel-Ebikake

Cogent Business & Management, 2018, vol. 5, issue 1, 1459338

Abstract: The purpose of the study is to identify logistic elements germane to e-grocery businesses, and to reveal the challenges collateral with each logistic element. Further, it strives to create a better understanding of specific remedies that have been employed by top e-grocery retailers to overcome existing challenges while aligning identified challenges with Turban’s framework. Extensive semi-structured interviews were conducted with management staff in three of the top ten global online grocery retailers and another that was a market leader in a European country. The qualitative data collected was transcribed and coded using a non-hierarchical axial coding to identify emerging themes in content analysis. The results expose a range of challenges that could be compartmentalised into three broad categories, in harmony with the different stages of the order fulfilment process. Interestingly, the study found that most challenges were operational rather than tactical or strategic in nature. While the study expands existing knowledge, its revelation that most challenges lie in the management of roles and responsibilities domain is instructive. This makes it imperative for practitioners to focus on this specific area if meaningful improvement in e-grocery retailing performance is to be realised. This research offers a systematic understanding of supply and distribution challenges, including remedies utilised to ameliorate the effect of the challenges from the perspectives of the top companies in the industry. These remedies can be invaluable for existing and emerging e-grocers.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/23311975.2018.1459338 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:oabmxx:v:5:y:2018:i:1:p:1459338

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://cogentoa.tandfonline.com/journal/OABM20

DOI: 10.1080/23311975.2018.1459338

Access Statistics for this article

Cogent Business & Management is currently edited by Len Tiu Wright and Tahir Nisar

More articles in Cogent Business & Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().