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The need for delivery grew significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic because people avoided activities in public to limit the spread of the virus. The purpose of this research was to evaluate how the pandemic influenced many individual's delivery preferences through the administration of a stated preference survey targeted at residents in the New River Valley, Virginia. Conclusions revealed from the survey show that people want more efficient and accessible delivery services. A new delivery ecosystem called Delivery as a Service (DaaS) was developed using the input from the survey, existing service-based models being widely implemented in many industries, and emerging technologies. This thesis details a framework for DaaS derived by defining major actors, characteristics, and a method to measure the effectiveness of a DaaS system. This comprehensive definition of integrated delivery services illustrates areas for future research to further optimize the DaaS system. DaaS has the potential to significantly change the current delivery ecosystem through increased delivery accessibility and efficiency. Goods can be brought to users at a faster rate and on a larger scale. Autonomous vehicle and drone delivery technologies can significantly reduce the cost while correspondingly reducing the time of delivery. DaaS is a concept that is needed for people to thrive in modern times and brings the opportunity to provide added benefits to even rural areas. / Master of Science / The need for delivery grew significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic because people avoided activities in public to limit the spread of the virus. The purpose of this research was to evaluate how the pandemic influenced many individual's delivery preferences through the administration of a stated preference survey targeted at residents in the New River Valley, Virginia. Conclusions revealed from the survey show that people want more efficient and accessible delivery services. A new delivery ecosystem called Delivery as a Service (DaaS) was developed using the input from the survey, existing service-based models being widely implemented in many industries, and emerging technologies. This thesis details a framework for DaaS derived by defining major actors, characteristics, and a method to measure the effectiveness of a DaaS system. This comprehensive definition of integrated delivery services illustrates areas for future research to further optimize the DaaS system. DaaS has the potential to significantly change the current delivery ecosystem through increased delivery accessibility and efficiency. Goods can be brought to users at a faster rate and on a larger scale. Autonomous vehicle and drone delivery technologies can significantly reduce the cost while correspondingly reducing the time of delivery. DaaS is a concept that is needed for people to thrive in modern times and brings the opportunity to provide added benefits to even rural areas.

It is indisputable that the internet has become a necessary component of contemporary multi-channel retail, as more consumers are choosing to purchase goods online each year. As online spending continues to grow, many have called into question the future of brick-and-mortar retail. This thesis seeks to empirically prove that brick-and-mortar retail remains not only relevant, but indispensable in direct-to-consumer business models. The basis of this conjecture is the idea of channel synergism, in which online and brick-and-mortar operations are complementary. This theory is predicated on the emergence of the omni-channel retail, which is characterized by the integration of the various direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels to support cross-channel consumer interaction. To empirically test this hypothesis, key operating metrics were examined over the five year period from 2007 to 2011. By examining profitability trends and several D2C channel relationships, empirical support is developed to substantiate the claim that brick-and-mortar operations are not being driven into obsolescence by the growing prevalence of e-commerce transactions.

Background Omni-channel retailing has developed as an extension of multi-channel retailing. The difference between the concepts is the level of integration, where an omni-channel requires seamless and complete channel integration compared to a multi-channel where the level of integration varies from non-existing to high. Today’s customers expect an integrated shopping experience where they can combine the different channels according to their preferences and omni-channel is a way for retailers to meet this need. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to explore the concept of omni-channel retailing and its implementation in retail firms operating in the Swedish market. Method This study is based on an interpretive approach and takes the form of an exploratory multiple case study through the investigation of four retailers. Qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews and the findings were analyzed abductively. Conclusion The conclusion of this thesis is that the investigated retailers still have, more or less, a long way to go in their integrative efforts. The retailer that has come the furthest in their effort has only implemented nine out of fifteen omni-channel criteria. Three main incentives for implementing an omni-channel strategy were identified. These are to respond to customer demands, to optimize the individual sales channels and to gain a competitive advantage. Additionally, several challenges arise as the retailer moves towards an omni-channel. These include technological investments, change management, channel conflict, return management and consistency. Furthermore, five potential sources of these challenges were identified as technological requirements, organizational changes, sales accreditation policies, in-store returns and finally the franchise business model.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact Omni channel has on the ware-house activities in a central warehouse for electronic retailers. In order to fulfill the purpose the following research questions are analyzed and answered; “What are the challenges in the warehouse activities in a central warehouse for an electronic retailer when Omni channel is utilized?” and “How can the challenges in the warehouse activities be managed in a central warehouse for an electronic retailer using Omni channel?” Methodology: The research method for this study is qualitative with an abductive approach. A single case study has been conducted based on interviews and observations. Furthermore, the literature review is based on scientific articles. The empirical findings from the case study have been a complement to the limited literature of warehouse activities connected to Omni channel. The analysis has required the authors to continuously match the empirical findings and literature in order to be able to fulfill the purpose. In order to analyze the answer the first research question an Ishikawa diagram is used. Furthermore, a tree diagram is used in order to analyze the answer for the second research question. Findings: There are various challenges identified in the warehouse activities in a central warehouse for electronic retailers using Omni channel. Furthermore, the authors identifies challenges that have an impact on the warehouse activities where Omni channel is the cause for creating the challenges. Lastly, the authors provide the reader with improvement factors in order to manage the challenges identified. Theoretical implications: The authors identify five theoretical implications for this study; large pallets, non-integrated WMS, a non-suitable picking equipment, a non-suitable layout, and packing. These challenges occur as an outcome of Omni channel and therefore can be seen as a theoretical contribution to the limited literature. Managerial implications: It is crucial for electronic retailers to identify the challenges in the warehouse activities and understand the underlying reason for why the challenges arise. Furthermore, improvement factors can be identified and implemented by an extended anal-ysis. However, modifications are required since there are various factors that can differ be-tween electronic retailers using Omni channel.

It is indisputable that the internet has become a necessary component of contemporary multi-channel retail, as more consumers are choosing to purchase goods online each year. As online spending continues to grow, many have called into question the future of brick-and-mortar retail. This thesis seeks to empirically prove that brick-and-mortar retail remains not only relevant, but indispensable in direct-to-consumer business models. The basis of this conjecture is the idea of channel synergism, in which online and brick-and-mortar operations are complementary. This theory is predicated on the emergence of the omni-channel retail, which is characterized by the integration of the various direct-to-consumer (D2C) channels to support cross-channel consumer interaction. To empirically test this hypothesis, key operating metrics were examined over the five year period from 2007 to 2011. By examining profitability trends and several D2C channel relationships, empirical support is developed to substantiate the claim that brick-and-mortar operations are not being driven into obsolescence by the growing prevalence of e-commerce transactions.

Banking through insufficiently coordinated and non-integrated channels (Multi-Channel) is slowly being discarded. With Omni-Channel banking, where channels are integrated and data and information are shared across cross channels, customers are in control of the channels they wish to use. Factors influencing the organisational decision to transition from Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel hasn't been fully explored. Is this decision responding to internal factors like efficiency improvements, or is it driven by external factors like customer demands, trying to enhance customer experience, gaining competitive advantage over the competitors, expanding the business by introducing new business models, or trying to gain access to smart technologies for financial benefit? This dissertation presents research findings into the investigation of factors that influence the organisational decision to transition from Multi-Channel to Omni-Channel banking. A positivist case study with inductive reasoning was adopted. Qualitative data was collected from a single organisation through interviews together with observations of the strategy documents between January 2019 and April 2019. An initial conceptual model was derived from the literature review to guide data collection, after which thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and develop an emergent theory. The key findings from the research study are that a customer centric approach informs the decision to transition. The customer is at the centre of the omni-channel strategy: that is through an enhanced customer experience or timeously responding to customer demands. Other factors are either enabling this strategy, like technological innovations, and efficiency improvements or are the outcome of the strategy like customer satisfaction, revenue or cost optimisation, and competitive advantage. The key implications are that organisations must pay more attention to the customer journey and ensure that they advance in the Customer Experience Capability Maturity Model. Most successful business transitions to the Omni-Channel strategy require a transformation in organizational culture, operations and processes, and the underlying technologies.

This study attempts to identify possibilities for creating a unified offline and online customer experience across communication channels in a retail company. With the current technological development and the trend of customers shifting more to the online channel, the customers also expect more from this communication channel. Within the online channel a development into an omni- channel (unified experience across channels) approach is leading to new possibilities, and keeping up with the development will support companies to keep their competitive advantage. The study reviews a case (Mio) with an offline channel represented by several large scale retail stores in Sweden, and also providing an online channel as a website meant to complement the stores. The study reviews previous literature in the field of customer experience both online and offline, omni channel retailing, and marketing. This is the foundation, together with a benchmark case (comparison case), and a survey to gain further insight and widen the knowledge. The results indicates that there are specific features which could contribute to a more positive and seamless experience across channels for the customer. These are information availability, quality and consistency across channels. As well as, functionality for purchases, order handling and tracking, and interactive customer service online. This could preferentially be fused in one place as a customers personal profile, allowing for a portal with everything the customer needs during all phases of the shopping experience. These findings provide insight into how the online channel could be used to better complement the offline channel, working synergistically. Future research is needed to validate these initial findings.

Digital and mobile channels has dramatically changed the retailing environment. New technologies allow companies to integrate information between different channels, in order to create a seamless and personal shopping experience for its customers. This is termed omni-channel retail strategy. In previous research it is discussed that this is the only way for retail companies to survive in the new retail environment. Previous research has focused on customer attitudes and values ​​but not on their actual behaviour. Thus, more research is required on how customers combine different channels during their buying process and how they experience the interaction. The purpose of the thesis is to create an understanding of how the omni-channel customer experiences its interaction with retailing channels. The goal is for companies to be able to use this study to better understand their customers experiences, and thereby improve their omni-channel strategy. In order to achieve the purpose of the study, a theoretical model, S-O-U, has been designed based on the classical Stimulus-Organism-Response model, which  often is used to describe consumer behaviour. The theoretical model has been used as a basis for the study's implementation and analysis. The study has a qualitative research strategy, and the data has been collected through focus groups. The collected data has been analysed based on the theoretical framework of the study, and the result shows that the customer uses different channels during its buying process to maximize their exchange. Furthermore, it has been found that the customer has different needs during the phases of the buying process. At the beginning of the buying process the customer is primarily driven by utilitarian values, while at the end of the buying process it is rather driven by hedonic values. The selection of channel depends on how well the channel can meet the customer's needs. Although the customer is driven by different values during the buying process, the result has clearly shown that both utilitarian and hedonic values ​​are necessary for the customer to have a positive experience of the interaction with different channels.

Detaljhandeln har präglats av förändringar under det senaste decenniet, inte minst har e-handeln ökat markant. Omsättningen hos e-handeln i den svenska sällanköpshandeln tredubblades mellan 2012 och 2019. Samtidigt har butikshandeln minskat på många håll, vilket även förstärkts av coronapandemin. Från kunderna finns bland annat ökade förväntningar på integration mellan online- och offlinekanalerna hos detaljhandlarna, det vill säga att utveckla en så kallad omnikanal. Detta har lett till att butikers roll har förändrats och butikerna har i större utsträckning använts i e-handelsdistributionen med strategier som Click-and-Collect och Ship-From-Store(SFS). Cervera är en svensk detaljhandlare inom matlagning, dukning och inredning och är ett företag som börjat använda sina butiker i e-handelsdistributionen. Det senaste steget har varit att möjliggöra artiklar att skickas till kund från butik, så kallad Ship-From-Store, om artiklarna i fråga är slut på centrallagret. Utformningen av vilka artiklar och från vilka butiker detta ska vara möjligt för, samt vilka effekter det får, är dock något Cervera vill utvärdera, och således var studiens syfte: Att ta fram ett beslutsunderlag för vilka artiklar och butiker som kan inkluderas i Cerveras SFS-flöde med avseende på kostnader, intäkter och leveransservice. I studien togs beslutsunderlag fram dels genom intervjuer med region- och butikschefer på Cervera och dels genom att utveckla en beräkningsmodell med avseende på hur Ship-From-Store kan komma att påverka kostnader, intäkter och lagertillgänglighet. I intervjuerna framkommer det att få praktiska anledningar finns för att exkludera butiker men att butikschefens och personalens inställning kan påverka resultatet. Uppstartskostnaderna för att inkludera ytterligare butiker är låga, men vid ett ökat antal e-handelsordrar till följd av Ship-From-Store kan ytterligare personal behöva anställas och således medföra ökade kostnader. En beräkningsmodell togs fram som behandlade kostnader och täckningsbidrag för en orderrad och hur dessa skiljer sig mellan Ship-From-Store-distribution och en e-handelsorder som skickas direkt från centrallagret. Kostnaderna och täckningsbidraget togs fram för alla Cerveras artikelnummer men även snittkostnader och snittäckningsbidrag över samtliga artikelnummer. Modellen behandlade även hur lagertillgängligheten kan förändras vid införandet av Ship-From-Store och i förlängningen även hur försäljningen och därmed intäkterna påverkas av denna ökade lagertillgänglighet. Beräkningsmodellen implementerades med indata från Cervera och från resultatet identifierades att de förbättringar som kan ses i lagertillgänglighet och ökad försäljning är som störst vid implementering av de första butikerna som inkluderas i Ship-From-Store. Att inkludera ytterligare butiker ökar lagertillgängligheten men effekten avtar desto fler butiker som inkluderas. En fördel med att inkludera fler butiker är att de ordrarna som Ship-From-Store resulterar i, kan fördelas ut på fler butiker desto fler som inkluderas och minskar därmed arbetsbelastningen per butik. Det medför mindre risk för butiker att behöva anställa mer personal för hantering av e-handelsordrar. De kostnader som huvudsakligen skiljer sig mellan Ship-From-Store och leverans från centrallagret är kostnader för hantering. I dagsläget tillkommer ingen explicit kostnad för hantering i butik men om Ship-From-Store-ordrar belastas med en kostnad motsvarande personalkostnaden för tiden det tar för hantering blir Ship-From-Store dyrare än alternativet när det skickas från CL. Antalet av en artikel en orderrad innehåller är också avgörande för täckningsbidraget för en orderrad. Vissa artiklar ger negativt täckningsbidrag om de köps enskilt, men genererar vinst om en orderrad innehåller flera av samma artikel. Ship-From-Store möjliggör även en markant förbättrad lagertillgänglighet på e-handeln och Cervera har möjlighet att på så sätt öka försäljningen enligt resultatet från den beräkningsmodell som har tagits fram. / The retail market has been subject to changes during the latest decade, especially e-commerce has seen significant growth. Sales in the Swedish retail market tripled between 2012 and 2019. Meanwhile, brick-and-mortar store sales have diminished in many places, this effect has been reinforced due to the Corona pandemic. There are increased expectations from the customers on integration between the online- and offline channels, to develop a so called omnichannel. This has led to a change in the role of brick-and-mortar stores which have been increasingly used in the fulfillment of e-commerce orders with strategies such as Click-and-Collect and Ship-From-Store. Cervera is a Swedish homeware retailer which has begun to use their brick-and-mortar stores in their e-commerce distribution. The latest step has been to enable articles to be sent to the customer from a store, so called Ship-From-Store, if the articles in question are out of stock in the central warehouse. The decision of which articles and from which stores this should be possible, is something Cervera wants to examine, and thus the purpose of this study was: To provide a decision basis for which articles and stores that can be included in Cervera’s Ship-From-Store-distribution with regards to costs, revenue and delivery service. In this study, a decision basis was provided partly through interviews with regional and store managers at Cervera and partly through developing a calculation model with regards to how Ship-From-Store might affect costs, revenue and delivery service. From the interviews it is revealed that there are few practical reasons to exclude stores from Ship-From-Store however the store manager’s and the staff’s attitude towards Ship-From-Store might affect the result. The initial costs for including a new store are low, but if the amount of e-commerce orders stores have to handle increases, stores might need to hire additional staff and thus costs will increase. A calculation model was developed which processed costs and gross margin for an order line and how these differ between Ship-From-Store and an e-commerce order sent from the central warehouse. The costs and the gross margin were calculated for each article number, but also the mean costs and mean gross margin between all article numbers. The model also processed how stock availability can change with the introduction of Ship-From-Store and by extension how sales and therefore revenue is affected by the increase in stock availability. The calculation model was implemented with input data from Cervera and the results suggested that the improvements in stock availability and sales were the most significant for the first fewstores included in Ship-From-Store. Introducing additional stores improves the stock availability, however, the effect decreases for each additional store being introduced. The advantage of adding additional stores is that the orders that Ship-From-Store results in, can be distributed between more stores and thereby decreasing the workload for each store. This entails less risk of stores needing to hire more staff for handling of e-commerce orders. The costs which mainly differs between Ship-From-Store and delivery from the central warehouse are costs for handling. No explicit cost from handling in store is added but if Ship-From-Store orders are burdened with cost corresponding to the cost of staff for the time it takes for handling, Ship-From-Store becomes the more expensive alternative when compared to shipment from the central warehouse. The number of articles an order line contains is also crucial for the gross margin of an order line. Some articles yield a negative gross margin if sold individually but earns a profit if an order line contains several articles. Ship-From-Store also enables a significantly improved stock availability for Cervera’s e-commerce and Cervera thus have the opportunity to increase sales according to the results of the calculation model that has been developed.