MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Online Shoppers Don't Always Care About Faster Delivery

The COVID-19 pandemic changed how we shop. Soon after the onset of the global pandemic, retailers reported a rapid shift from in-store to online purchases. Online buying accounted for 18% of worldwide retail sales in 2020, up from about half that in 2018. Grocery shoppers stampeded to the web: As of May 2020, 41% of U.S. online grocery shoppers were first-time users of such services. The expectation is that the online shift will persist well beyond the pandemic across most retail subsectors.

Adapting to these changes is no small feat, and doing so profitably — well, that’s even harder. In response to the shift in consumer purchasing behavior since the beginning of the pandemic, many of the retail executives with whom we work are rethinking their existing omnichannel strategies. Our conversations with the e-commerce director of a leading European grocery retailer offered evidence of how difficult it is to shift operations to support the online shopper.

About the Author

Pedro Amorim is an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Universidade do Porto and a cofounder of LTPlabs.

Nicole DeHoratius is an adjunct professor of operations management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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