Perfect Order and Its Components: Application for Deliveries of Fast Moving Consumer Goods to Retail Stores

Abstract

The perfect order concept is traditionally used to measure logistics performance, but the conventional assessment of the perfect order from the perspective of the “in-time, in-full and error-free” trinity is no longer viable today. This paper aims to make a modest contribution to creating a novel understanding of the perfect order concept. Based on the primary survey in 132 Czech retail stores, the authors identify the key components that constitute a perfect order fulfilment of fast moving consumer goods to retail stores, namely reliability, collaboration, extra adaptation, ordering, and promotion. Subsequently, it was discovered that there are the differences in the influence of the identified components depending on the retail store type. Retail stores in the sense of drugstores regard extra adaptation and promotion as being the more important components compared to retail stores specialising in food products. Independent retail stores regard collaboration and promotion as being much less important components compared to retail stores that form part of a retail chain. Ordering is a more important component for small retail stores compared to large retail stores. Retail stores located in a capital city and in towns representing the centres of individual regions regard collaboration and extra adaptation to be the more important components compared to retail stores located in small towns. Research results support perfection in measuring logistics performance and make it possible to improve retail store operation.