Shop and Ship

Background:

As online stores start to compete with traditional brick and mortar stores the goal is to combine the benefits of both types of businesses. Brick and mortar stores provide the benefit of seeing the actual items, picking up your purchase right away, and not having to pay for shipping. But, sometimes the store is not convenient to your location, or you do not have time to go shopping. Online stores offer the convenience of shopping from home and the added benefit, in many cases, of no additional sales or other taxes. And, with international shipping, many more items are available to shoppers all over the globe via the Internet. For the purposes of this HiMCM problem, we will use an example from the United States.

Your recreation equipment company currently not selling apparel/clothing has a small brick and mortar store, but conducts most of its business through online sales. Your company’s headquarters and main warehouse is located in New Hampshire (NH), USA. Due to increased demand for your product, you are expanding and your team’s task is to choose locations for the new warehouses. Your initial expansion goal is to service the 48 continental United States (not Alaska-AK or Hawaii-HI or Puerto Rico-PR) with one-day ground shipping with United Parcel Service (UPS).