Intraday Store Sales Patterns : The Basis to Replenish Retail Shelves Just-in-Time

Today's dominant shelf replenishment concepts in grocery retailing target on-shelf availability of any product at any time during store opening hours. In line, out-of-stocks are reported as the number of occasions a specific product was not available on the designated shelf space during store opening hours. In this paper, we challenge the assumption that products need to be available at any time during store opening hours. Based on point-of-sales data we show that product demand varies during a day and that these variations follow predictable patterns. Many products of different categories show low or no sales during a specific time, while sales are high during another time during store opening hours. This key finding suggests that shelf replenishment concepts for retail stores may benefit from integrating the just-in-time philosophy applied in industrial settings. We further discuss that a just-in-time shelf replenishment approach in grocery retail stores increases efficiency for high turnover products, while low turnover products are better replenished based on free capacity of store staff than specific timing. The findings have major implications for store delivery concepts, including warehouse picking