Locating a New Fulfillment Center with the Domain Criterion

Throughout the last 10 or 20 years, the volume of ecommerce has increased tremendously. Many factors have contributed to this phenomenon, not least the diversification of consumer tastes. As one illustration of this phenomenon, if it was sufficient to get a product named “salt,” say, 50 years ago, consumers now demand table salt, sea salt, Himalayan pink salt, kosher salt, curing salt, Hawaiian salt (red and black), etc. Even very large stores can hardly carry all these types (apart from the fact that each type is available from different producers, which may make a difference to some customers), especially since the total demand for salt has not changed all that much, it has just fragmented into many different items. One reply to this phenomenon were mail order catalog sales. Following Pahwa (This old marketing tool will give you an explosive advantage, 2014), the very first catalog dates back to 1498, and the first North American catalog was issued in 1845 by Tiffany & Co. Clearly, the best-known catalog was the famous Sears Roebuck catalog back in 1888 (see, e.g., Sears Archives, Chronology of the Sears Catalog, 2021). For further details, see also Publitas (A visual history of the catalog, undated).