Application of Web Scraping and Google API service to optimize convenience stores' distribution

Abstract

In the current competitive market, offering a relatively cheaper price for the commodity plays an important role in obtaining a greater share of the market for a corporate entity as it encourages more customers to purchase from its product. Convenience stores are becoming indispensable for the Japanese society, there are presently 54,008 retail stores throughout Japan and their number continues to increase. The reasons behind such popularity are convenient locations, attractive products and long trading hours. Their price, however, are more expensive than regular supermarkets and groceries stores mainly due to their numerous overhead cost, the major of which is their requirement for refurbishment of goods several times per day. In this study, a practical approach that utilizes computer techniques to find an optimal vehicle routing scheme for goods and service delivery to multiple convenience stores is investigated. Although many scholars have already investigated the location problem of supply chain facilities and centers under different conditions, this study takes a programming approach using Web Scraping and Excel VBA and hope to turn it into a cheap but powerful Excel Add-in module or real-time navigation function. A mathematical ‘network flow model’ is initially developed to examine the problem. Geographical data of convenience stores, their associated warehouses, garbage dumpsites and gas stations are subsequently retrieved through programming with the ‘web scraping’ technique. A computer program that utilizes Google API service is then developed to solve the optimal networking problem. Validity of obtained results is also examined by other known method to justify its optimality and fast performance.