Consumer willingness to accept product substitutions in online orders in grocery retail: implications for fulfilment operations

Many omnichannel grocery retailers fulfill online orders from store inventory, facing challenges from post-purchase stockouts. To address this, retailers often offer product substitutions from available inventory. This paper identifies drivers of consumers’ willingness to accept such substitutions. Using data from a field study, we find that willingness is shaped by consumer-level factors (e.g., purchasing power) and order-level characteristics (e.g., share of heavy products in the order). We offer implications for the research and practice of online fulfilment operations.