Product deletion as an operational strategic decision: Exploring the sequential effect of prominent criteria on decision-making

Destruction Decisions for Managing Excess Inventory in E-Commerce Logistics

“…Given the direct relations in Tables 2-4, which are stated in linguistic terms, the three-step procedure presented in Section 3.2 is considered to process data and obtain the TRM. To identify the total relations with a significant magnitude, a threshold of average plus one standard deviation of the TRM values is considered, as suggested by [20]. It is observed that Environmental and Health Impact imposes the most significant influence on the financial factors, i.e., Profit Margin and the Destruction Cost.…”

“…For this purpose, the following keywords are searched in the title and abstract of the papers using Google Scholar database in two separate rounds: (1) "inventory liquidation" OR "inventory destruction" OR "inventory deletion" OR "inventory removal"; (2) "product destruction" OR "product liquidation". The keywords "product deletion" and "product removal" are not included in our search because they refer to the discontinuation of a brand/product from the production process by the manufacturer [19]; for a detailed review of these papers, we refer the readers to [20]. Overall, a total of 75 articles were initially identified by the search engine.…”

“…The destruction decisions should be based on the analysis of the tangible and intangible outcomes to ensure the best managerial course of action. Myopic financial perspectives may result in adverse impacts in the long term [20]. Although inventory destruction is usually a reactive managerial practice, multi-faceted operational factors are required to ensure sustainable outcomes for such strategic decisions [30].…”

“…Inventory shortage or the absence of commodity products in the product list of an e-commerce platform makes the customer use the competitor's platform; in addition to the lost sale, this may result in losing the customer's loyalty for their next purchases. Having substitutes, i.e., the products intended to serve the same functionality and purpose [20,[40][41][42], helps ensure that destructing certain products does not adversely impact the e-commerce company's ability to fulfilling possible customer needs. As a long-term consideration, partnership with the producers is of paramount significance to ensure low cost, high quality, high flexibility, and responsiveness in providing a responsiveness platform for online shoppers.…”

“…The inventory destruction decisions are, however, complex requiring well-informed decisions considering tangible and intangible outcomes, and a balance of financial and non-financial considerations. Recent articles explored the product deletion decisions from the producers' perspective [19,20]. These researches introduced supply chain operational, competitive, and sustainability considerations for the discontinuation decisions in fast-moving consumer goods production.…”