In supply chain and logistics management, the distribution network design is one of the most important problems because it offers a great potential to reduce costs and to improve service quality. The location-routing problems (LRP) problem simultaneously is developed [1]. However, the combination of the location-allocation and the vehicle routing problems is surely difficult. The advent of e-commerce (EC) has made retailing more complicated and more competitive. It is within this business context that it is forcing many traditional bricks-and-mortar companies to reconsider how to efficient retrofit their existing infrastructure which offering multiple complementary channels provides a greater and deeper mix of customer service [2]. On the other hand, delivering products to customers is also a critical activity in any business. Especially, B2C environment has voluminous, unpredictable, and dynamically changing customer orders. On-time delivery relies heavily on effective vehicle routing. The vehicle routing problem is much more complicated in B2C environment. Unfortunately, there is little research specifically addressing retail/e-tail operations and how the addition of an online sales channel should affect a firm's supply chain network design [3]. Our research contributes to fill this gap and to examine strategies that retailer/e-tailers can employ to leverage synergies between online channels and “bricks” locations.
