E-commerce: Difficulties in the logistics of fruits and vegetables

A little over a week ago I spoke about the onslaught of some global e-commerce giants in Retail Trade and their quest to enrich consumers' shopping experience. Well then. This week, Valor Econômico newspaper brought a series of articles about the increase in the number of North American consumers who buy groceries online.

Expectations are high: by 2024, it is expected that around 70% of US consumers will be buying fruits and vegetables online! Just to give you an idea, in Brazil, currently, only 2% of consumers make purchases in virtual supermarkets in the country. Anyway, although this reality still seems to be a long way off, we know that the world is changing very quickly, and companies need to be prepared for the new scenario that is coming.

And where does logistics fit into this transformation? In all!!! After all, retailers need to adapt their operations to the new reality. One reality is to deliver a book, the other is to deliver 1 kg of tomatoes and 1 kg of fish, all fresh and without wrinkles! To do so, companies will need to rethink their distribution centers and even the organization of their stores. The delivery time will need to be short and, for this, the storage locations for the items will need to be close to consumers and not at the entrance to cities, where the cheapest land is usually located and, consequently, the companies' distribution centers.

As we have seen in post I quoted earlier, the Chinese chains' solution to the location problem was to adapt their stores to also be a shipping hub for purchases originating from e-commerce. In this model, the store employee himself does the picking and packing, with conveyor belts forwarding the packaged products to the shipping center. The advantage of this model is that it takes advantage of the location of the stores, which are generally dispersed throughout the city. The complicating factor, however, is in inventory management and in the concern not to disturb the public in the physical store.

The alternative to this model is to store, sort and ship orders through an exclusive distribution center for e-commerce. The centralized model tends to increase delivery time, which can be compensated with the use of route mapping systems and the use of full vehicle capacity, which will require the use of a scheduling system, which consolidates deliveries at the time orders are placed.

The difficulties of electronic commerce of perishables are not restricted to storage, but also extend to transportation. With the variety of items to be delivered, the ideal is that the trucks are compartmentalized, being able to transport refrigerated, frozen and dry items at the same time. Another option is to use thermal packaging to guarantee the temperature of refrigerated and frozen items during transport, although this solution carries risks, depending on the travel time during deliveries.

Recently, Carrefour launched in São Paulo a new delivery model that has already been used in the United States and in some European countries. It's a kind of drive-thru, in which the customer drives to one of the chain's stores to pick up the purchase made via e-commerce. For the retailer, the model takes the weight off the last mile, as this is now done by the consumer himself.

References:

Modern Supermarket – See how to plan your e-commerce logistics

Economic value - digital gondolas

NoVarejo Portal – Carrefour launches drive-thru food delivery in Brazil