In e-retail, order fulfillment speed has become one of the most important metrics affecting customer satisfaction. While common wisdom dictates that maintaining a large global fulfillment network maximizes efficiency via economies of scale, recent evidence has shown that breaking up the network into smaller regions can yield significant speed improvements. In this paper, we consider a simple abstract model of order fulfillment by which we explain this phenomenon. We characterize fulfillment assignments satisfying an equilibrium condition based on the greedy fulfillment strategy, and quantify how the resulting fulfillment delay can be decreased by regionalizing the network. Finally, we provide some algorithmic results for computing low delay assignments, and some simulations supporting our equilibrium framework.

翻译：在电子商务零售中，订单履行速度已成为影响客户满意度的最重要指标之一。尽管传统观点认为维持大型全球配送网络可通过规模经济实现效率最大化，但近期证据显示，将网络划分为较小区域可显著提升配送速度。本文通过构建简易的抽象订单履行模型对这一现象进行解释。我们基于贪心履行策略刻画满足均衡条件的配送分配方案，并量化了网络区域化对履行延迟的缩减效果。最后，我们给出了计算低延迟配送分配的算法结果，以及支持本文均衡框架的仿真实验。