A) What are the pros and cons of the various measures of product availability?
B) Why can a Home Depot with a few large stores provide a higher level of product availability with lower inventories than a hardware store chain such as Tru-Value, with many small stores?
C) As a firm gets better at postponement (can postpone at lower cost), should it increase/leave unchanged/decrease the variety that it offers? Why?
E) Consider two products with the same margin carried by a retail store. Any leftover units of one product are worthless. Leftover units of the other product can be sold to outlet stores. Which product should have a higher level of availability? Why?
F) What are some scenarios in which postponing product differentiation across all products may not be profitable? How can tailored postponement help in such situations?
G) Walmart designs its networks so a DC supports several large retail stores. Explain how the company can use such a network to reduce transportation costs while replenishing inventories more frequently.
H) Do you expect aggregation of inventory at one location to be more effective when a company such as Dell sells computers or when a company such as Amazon.com sells books? Explain by considering transportation and inventory costs.