Other than "fresh" produce (which could be transported in refrigerated train containers), there is no need to hurtle everything to everywhere overnight.
I think that most supermarkets and whatever manufacturing we have left now operate on a last minute supply basis. It saves them from having to tie too much money up in stock. There's a name for it which escapes me at the moment.
JIT is the acronym for 'Just in Time'
As you say this allows the customer to avoid having to have large warehouses and reduces their cashflow problems.
However companies using JIT forget the commercial needs of their suppliers when their ordering becomes JTL I have made this up and it means Just too late.
I dealt with a large national retailer whos ordering for deliveries commencing Monday was only given out on the previous Thursday and we are not talking here about just picking something off a shelf to send accross we are talking about actually manufacturing items to send accross. It was ridiculous.
Their JIT even involved the specified items arriving at specified times of the day.
I remember one time I was unable to provide a specific design of furniture on the day this large national retailer had requested because we had worked to their order list received on the Thursday and had all the deliveries ready for Monday when a call on Friday asked for a different model instead.
It could not be done.
We then had a visit from all the directors and relevant staff , buyers etc en masse who then attempted to tell us that we could not run our business. I was furious and sent this entourage off with a flea in their ear explaining to them that if they thought we were disorganised it was purely because we were unable to run our business as we would like to ourselves with forward planning as we were reacting to the disorganised ordering from their end with no lead time given on anything or even a stock list for stock items they would regularly call off.
As it happens they were crap at ordering other items too from other suppliers which is why they had to change things at the last minute.
But as a big national they just carried on like that while us suppliers pulled our hair out.
After the 'meeting' we received orders a week in advance for about a month until it quickly slipped back to two days notice again.