Reaching 50 Million Nanostores: Retail Distribution in Emerging Megacities (black and white version)

Millions of small, family operated nanostores are the main source of consumer packaged goods in many neighborhoods of large cities across the developing world. In many of these countries, well over half of consumer goods are sold via the nanostore channel. Understanding this channel is critical for anyone selling or intending to sell into these large and fast growing markets. Tackling the logistics complexities of serving millions of nanostores is a challenge that many face, yet few master. In this book, we discuss logistics distribution and commercial route-to-market concepts for this channel and present best practices from Latin America, Asia, and North Africa. The book serves to inspire managers in marketing, sales, supply chain, distribution, logistics, and general management to develop their understanding and their business success in these growing markets.

This book includes a unique set of case studies focusing on companies that have successfully created forward-looking approaches to retail operations over the world. The case studies included provide readers with a range of best practices, useful insights, and commercial and logistics strategies for serving diverse distribution channels. The authors (with extensive experience within these markets) and editors (from premier research institutions in Europe and the US) have done extensive field research over multiple years to develop the insights that are shared in this book.

With the growth of convenience stores in the developed world, the insights also serve as an inspiration for those in Europe and North America that are confronted with a rapid proliferation of retail outlets as proximity shopping is becoming the norm. In the final chapter, the editors reflect on recent developments, particularly in China, where electronic commerce and nanostores are partnering to become a strong rival for the organized retail channel.

＂As the world population tends to concentrate more and more in urban environments, the two fastest growing channels for consumer goods distribution are online sales and convenient, proximal nanostores. Remarkably, this trend applies to both the most and the least developed economies. This book is a valuable resource that covers the realities and the challenges of serving nanostores, a subject much less widely covered than the ＂sexier＂ online e-commerce channel, but equally important for understanding the evolution of the world’s fast moving consumer goods markets.＂ - Sergio Barbarino, P&G Research Fellow and Chairman of The European Technology Platform for Logistic Innovation, ALICE

Jan C. Fransoo is a professor of Operations Management and Logistics at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Aside from having published extensively in the academic literature, he has conducted dozen of projects with leading innovative companies across a wide range of topics in the supply chain area, with experience across all continents. In recent years, his research work has concentrated on emerging markets and other developing economies. Jan holds an MSc in Industrial Engineering and a PhD in Operations Management & Logistics from Eindhoven University of Technology. In early 2018, Professor Fransoo will join Kuehne Logistics University in Hamburg, Germany.

Dr. Edgar E. Blanco is a Research Affiliate at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL) and a Director at Amazon Logistics. He has over 20 years of experience in designing and improving logistics and supply chain systems. Prior to joining Amazon, Blanco worked at Walmart e-Commerce, was a Principal Research Scientist at MIT, the Director of the MIT SCALE Network in Latin America, led Inventory Optimization practice at Retek (now Oracle Retail) and was a Senior Software Architect at Velant. Blanco is the Founder and former Director of the MIT Megacity Logistics Lab.

He is also widely recognized as an expert on carbon footprint assessments of global supply chains and models of environmental impacts of freight transportation and logistics. He received his PhD from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His educational background includes a B.Sc. and MSc. in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de los Andes (Colombia) and a MSc. in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Christopher Mejía-Argueta is a Research Scientist at the MIT CTL, director of the GCLOG program and director of the MIT SCALE Network in Latin America. He holds a MSc. and a PhD in Industrial Engineering from Tecnologico de Monterrey (Mexico). He was the academic leader at the Center for Latin-American Logistics Innovation (CLI), where he developed dozens of projects with industry and universities in Latin America. He was also a postdoctoral fellow at TU/e in the Netherlands.

He has developed dozens of research projects in optimization, SCM, retail operations, urban and humanitarian logistics for Latin America, Democratic Republic of Congo, United States and the Netherlands.