Key terms

1. 3D printing: A process of making three-dimensional solid objects from a

digitized file.
2. Big-box retailer: A store with large amounts of both floor space and
products for sale.
3. Co-branding: Refers to an alliance that allows customers to purchase
products from two or more name-brand retailers at one store location.
4. Container: A uniform sealed reusable metal “box” in which goods are
shipped.
5. Cost trade-offs: Changes to one logistics activity cause some costs to
increase and others decrease.
6. Disintermediation: The removal of levels (layers) from the channel of
distribution.
7. Economic utility: Refers to the value or usefulness of a product in fulfilling
customer’s needs and wants.
8. Form utility: Refers to a product’s being in a form that can be used by the
customer and is of value to the customer.
9. Humanitarian logistics: The process and systems involved in mobilizing
people, resources, skills and knowledge to help people who have been
affected by either a natural or man-made disaster.
10. Landed cost: Price of the product at its source plus transportation costs on
its destination.
11. Logistics: Part of supply chain management that plans, implements, and
controls the efficient, effective forward and reverse flow and storage of
goods, services, and related information between the point of origin and the
point of consumption to meet customers’ requirements.
12. Marketing channels: A set of institutions necessary to transfer the title to
goods and to move goods from the point of production to the point of
consumption and, as such, which consists of all the institutions and all the
marketing activities in the marketing process.
13. Mass logistics: A one-sized-fits-all approach in which every customer gets
the same type and levels of logistics service.
14. Materials management: The movement and storage of materials into a
firm.
15. Omnichannel retailing: Is a multichannel approach to sales that seeks to
provide the customer with a seamless shopping experience whether the
customer is shopping online from a desktop or mobile device, by telephone
or in a bricks-and-mortar store.
16. Physical distribution: Storage of finished products and movement to the
customers.
17. Place utility: Having products available where they are needed by
customers.
18. Possession utility: Refers to the value or usefulness that comes from a
customer being able to take possession of a product.
19. Postponement: The delay of value-added activities such as assembly,
production, and packaging to the latest possible time.
20. Sorting function: Bridges to the discrepancy between the assortment of
goods and services generated by the producer and the assortment
demanded by the customer.
21. Stock-keeping Units: (SKU’s): Each separate type of item that is
accounted for in an inventory.
22. Stockouts: Being out of an item at the same time there is a willing buyer
for it.
23. Sustainable products: Refers to products that meet present needs without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
24. Systems approach: A company’s objectives can be realized by
recognizing the mutual interdependence of the major functional areas of the
firm, such as marketing, production, finance, and logistics.
25. Tailored logistics: Groups of customers with similar logistical needs and
wants are provided with logistics service appropriate to those needs and
want.
26. Time utility: Having products available when they are needed by
customers.
27. Total cost approach: Concept that suggests that all relevant activities in
moving and sorting products should be considered as a whole (i.e, their total
cost), not individually.