Mapping the B2C order fulfillment process: From customer order placement to package delivery

Business-to-consumer (B2C) online retailing, including omni-channel models, has become a dominant retail format, and effective order fulfillment has emerged as a key determinant of service quality, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction. This study comprehensively reviews order fulfillment operations in B2C online retailing, emphasizing the unique logistical characteristics of this context: large assortments, multi-location fulfillment networks, personalized multi-item orders, and tight delivery time windows. We develop a practice-oriented taxonomy of operational decisions that mirrors the end-to-end order fulfillment process, covering order assignments, warehouse, shipping, and return operations. By synthesizing findings across these decision areas, this review reveals how recent advances in optimization and real-time decision-making address the complexity of modern e-commerce fulfillment. Based on these findings, this study highlights practice-driven challenges in B2C order fulfillment, examines how emerging data- and AI-driven methodologies can address them, and synthesizes a domain-specific research agenda across major operational decision areas, thereby providing a coherent roadmap for future research.