Retail supply chain management: a review of theories and practices

Abstract

Retail business has been rapidly evolving in the past decades with the boom of internet, mobile technologies and most importantly e-commerce. Supply chain management, as a core part of retail business, has also gone through significant changes with new business scenarios and more advanced technologies in both algorithm design and computation power. In this review, we focus on several core components of supply chain management, i.e. vendor management, demand forecasting, inventory management and order fulfillment. We will discuss the key innovations from both academia and industry and highlight the current trend and future challenges.