An investigation of whether retail companies can utilize the facilities at shopping malls in Norway in order to enable direct container deliveries through horizontal cooperation

Abstract

The core of this thesis is to explore how shopping malls in Norway are facilitated for handling container deliveries. The purpose of this investigation is to identify whether retail companies in Norway can benefit from a solution where imported goods are delivered directly out to the stores at shopping malls, without moving through a distribution center in Norway. In the first part of our thesis we will provide background information that explains the relevancy of the study. Based on this information we elaborate for the objective of the study which results in our research question, which is formulated as follows: “How are shopping malls in Norway facilitated in relation to handling container deliveries, and how would such an arrangement affect logistics costs and flexibility for the goods owners?” We have chosen a multiple case study as our research strategy because we are dealing with a phenomenon that is relatively new in a real life context. Two cases are applied in order to identify how shopping malls in Norway are facilitated with regard to handling container deliveries. These cases are the shopping malls AMFI Moss and Strømmen Storsenter. In addition, we have chosen to look at four retail companies in the clothing industry when identifying the interests of the goods owners. The data in this study was collected through interviews and observations as primary sources in addition to different sources of secondary data. Our findings show that both our chosen shopping malls are able to handle deliveries of containers, even though Strømmen Storsenter is better facilitated than AMFI Moss. In addition, our findings prove that there is a potential for cost savings if the goods owners utilize the possibility of container deliveries to shopping malls in Norway. In the last section of this paper we present the limitations of our study. These limitations are the basis for our suggestions for future research.