Abstract
Most of the companies that have decided on a subscription box model are startups that have gone bankrupt when they were still in their early days. One of the main reasons for this has been the high fulfillment costs they incurred. As subscription models undergo rapid growth, fulfillment costs per customer stay the same or even increase in the mid-term due to companies continually forced to increase the variety of items included in the subscription boxes, increase the types of boxes they offer, or even improve the logistics offer, for example, by offering greater flexibility in the order delivery windows. To respond to this, we developed a cost model for the fulfillment operations of a subscription box model, based on a real case study. The model analyzes the evolution of fulfillment costs, as these businesses expand their market to new populations, increase their number of customers, and vary their offer of products with new subscription boxes.
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The results of this work are supported by a set of four face-to-face interviews and two visits to the company’s facilities. The participant of the research study voluntarily agreed and gave informed consent to participate in the interviews and to guide the researchers during the two visits. All data was anonymized before publication. In addition, the respondent was informed about the study objectives and the impact of their responds for modeling business processes. Given the nature of the methodology, the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Vigo states that it does not need further ethics evaluation.
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Rodríguez-García, M., González-Romero, I., Hernández-García, C., Prado-Prado, J.C. (2022). Establishing a Fulfillment Costs Model for the Subscription Box. In: Avilés-Palacios, C., Gutierrez, M. (eds) Ensuring Sustainability. Lecture Notes in Management and Industrial Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95967-8_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95967-8_19
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