Goods relocation management in city fashion retailers with an incentive system

The goods relocation among fashion retailers located in the same city is a daily activity carried out by trucks. The related transport externalities in the urban area have a significant weight for the citizen quality of life. The reduction in the use of heavy and polluting vehicles through innovative sharing strategies is one of the most promising strategies to minimize externalities in urban areas. In this paper a goods relocation management approach for city fashion retailers involving customers is presented. The idea is to propose to loyal customers a voucher to be spent in the store as a reward (prize in the following) for the package delivery from one shop to another; this system can be developed by an app. In the case that no customer accepts, the company trucks will perform the service. This method allows having a double advantage: customer loyalty and externalities reduction caused by moving the trucks in the city. To this aim, an integer linear programming problem is formalized to manage the involve users in the goods relocation process by the proposed prizes. A simulation is presented to show the application of the methodology in the fashion retailers.