Grocery Retailing Research Articles

Analysis of Applications Principles of Barcode Technology in Product Cost Estimation and Identification

Bar codes are a technology for automatic identification which has found application in many business sectors. As we know that, bar codes have many applications; they have been mostly used in segments of the retail grocery as well as consumer goods industries. They use computers for barcode detection. A bar code has a self-contained message whose information is encoded in the geometry of its printed bars and spaces. When a bar code is read, the patterns of light and dark contained in the bars and spaces are translated into patterns of ones and zeros, which the reading computer interprets as numeric or alphanumeric data. In a simple barcode system, bar codes are read by passing a wand containing a light source and a photo-diode across the code to be read.

Company commitments and practices on nutrition and environmental sustainability in Ireland

Abstract Introduction The Business Impact Assessment (BIA) tools were developed by INFORMAS to document companies’ commitments on population nutrition (BIA-Obesity) and environmental sustainability (BIA-Sustainability). As part of the EU-funded Food Systems that Support Transitions to Healthy and Sustainable Diets (FEAST) project, we used the BIA-Obesity and BIA-Sustainability to map the public commitments of a range of national and international food companies active in Ireland. Methods We selected companies (n = 39) across the packaged food, soft drinks, quick service restaurant, grocery retailers, infant formula, and catering industries. Selection was based primarily on the companies’ market shares in Ireland, as well as potential to compare findings across countries. We searched each company's website, annual reports, and other public sources, logging all commitments relevant to the domains of the BIAs. We then asked companies to provide evidence of any additional publicly available commitments not included in our data collection. Then we scored the final set commitments for each company in each domain. The domains were weighted differently in different industries based on current evidence on the impact of each industry. Results Within each industry, the results vary widely, with some companies making extensive and detailed public commitments while others made few if any public commitments. Many companies, especially larger multinational companies, make strong commitments on sustainability, while commitments to tackle obesity and non-communicable diseases still lag behind. Conclusions There is still scope for food businesses to make more and clearer commitments on environmental sustainability and, especially, on population nutrition and health in Ireland. Now that a benchmark of companies’ commitments has been established, future work will focus on changing commitments over time, as well as, crucially, assessing practices related to these commitments.

Gamification: A Practitioner’s Case in Building Brands

Technological advancement and the increasing need for consumer engagement have brought a new trend in advertising and marketing – gamification. The stimulating and interactive nature of mobile games and possible game-style rewards allow marketers to promote their brands innovatively.
 This paper aims to contribute to the research on gamification in marketing, focusing on how the in-game presence of branding affects brand recall, brand recognition, and product sales. The data are collected from a practitioner and a real mobile game developed specifically for a grocery retail chain with around 2,000 stores in Thailand. The paired t-test results show that advergame product placement significantly increases brand recognition and recall.

Piloting a branded food database for reformulation monitoring in Ireland

Abstract Branded food databases (BFDs) are used to monitor changes in nutrition composition as a result of reformulation and innovation of pre-packed foods. There is no established BFD with market wide coverage of pre-packed foods within and across food categories in Ireland. To address this gap, we aimed to pilot a BFD for reformulation monitoring in Ireland. In 2020, a review of existing BFDs was complete and the Nutrition Composition and Labelling Information System (CLAS) developed by the Nutrition Institute in Ljubljana, Slovenia was identified and a partnership established. The CLAS tool and data collection methodology were translated, tested and adopted for use. CLAS-IRE was deployed to collect nutrition composition of seven food categories in December 2021-February 2022. The mean (SD) nutrition composition per food category (100g) was calculated using IBM SPSS V27 and sugar is presented here as an example. The review identified BFDs using different methods to collect nutrition composition of foods e.g. in-store, web-scraping and crowd-sourcing. A tool for instore collection was selected as 40% (n = 2) of Irish grocery retailers had online stores in 2020. CLAS-IRE was used to collect n = 2256 food products (biscuits n = 181, breakfast cereal n = 188, yogurt n = 297, carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages n = 132, confectionary n = 980, cakes n = 180 and savoury snacks n = 298). The average sugar content per food category was: biscuits 31.7g (9.4), breakfast cereals 15.8g (8.9), yogurt 9g (4), carbonated sugar-sweetened beverages 6.8 (3.6), confectionary 51.58g (10.7), cakes 33.5g (13.8) and savoury snacks 4.9g (9.3). Taking a partnership approach to piloting a branded food database for reformulation monitoring in Ireland allowed for a fast and cost-effective solution. This approach will enable cross country comparative analysis of nutrition composition of food products sold in both countries. The CLAS - IRE tool is established and available for nutrition research in Ireland. Key messages • Pre-packed foods are widely available in Ireland. The CLAS – IRE tool is established and available for nutrition research on pre-packed foods. • A branded food database can support the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of nutrition related policies and strategies in Ireland, including food reformulation.

Choice modeling of grocery shopping behavior: A Sri Lankan case study

Different retail forms play an integral part in the urban landscape in Sri Lankan cities shaping its spatial form. In planning new and different grocery retail forms, the main considerations are usually location, distance to population catchments and income levels. But distance-based descriptive methods are incapable of predicting the actual shopping behavior of grocery shoppers due to unrealistic assumptions that, for instance, shoppers will select the closest facility. Therefore, this study for the first time attempts to apply a behavioral model to determine the key drivers behind the store choice decision of grocery shoppers in a Sri Lankan city. A conceptual framework of individual choice behavior is adopted based on random utility theory and involves the application of a choice experiment. The analysis is based on a sample of 350 respondents representing households within the Piliyandala town area - a suburb of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The major findings are that, rather than distance being a primary influence on where people shop, attributes of retail destination such as quality of the products, price of the products and variety of goods available are more significant when maximizing utility. Thus, even though, supermarkets are typically perceived as the grocery retail form that maximizes utility, traditional grocery stores still continue to be a still popular icon of the retail landscape. This study, therefore, provides a study of how traditional grocery stores and modern supermarkets co-exist in suburbs of a major city in a developing country such as Sri Lanka. Further it broadens the understanding of grocery shopping behavior thereby facilitating the planning and design involved in commercial land uses related to grocery shopping. This is important given planners have been shown to be slow and conventional in responding to rapid changes in suburban form and function. Our findings can assist urban policy makers to reevaluate the retail policy framework in suburbs of Sri Lankan cities and therefore contribute to the facilitation of greater social and economic vibrancy in traditional economies.

Consumer acceptance of edible coatings on apples: The role of food technology neophobia and information about purpose

Edible coatings (wax) increase the shelf life of fresh apples by reducing water loss and slowing deterioration. Without edible coatings, over a third of apple production is wasted prior to reaching the retailer. However, due to consumer demand for ‘natural’ products major grocery retailers in Australia recently removed edible food coatings from apples. The reasons for rejection of coatings by Australian consumers are not well understood. Furthermore, it is unclear how much consumers understand about why edible coatings are applied to apples or if educating consumers on their benefits can influence their attitudes. In two online experiments (n = 156, n = 466) after collection of baseline data, participants were randomised into three conditions, in which each received a different education statement about the purpose of edible coatings. Analysis of variance and post hoc comparisons were used to test if the acceptance of coated apples was impacted by information and whether there was an interaction with food technology neophobia (FTN) (Experiment 2). Providing educational information about the purpose of apple coating significantly increased consumers’ acceptance of coatings in both experiments (F(2,153) = 6.316, P = 0.002, ŋ2 = 0.076; F(2,463) = 19.935, p ≤ 0.001, ŋ2 = 0.079). A significant inverse relationship was found between FTN and acceptance (R = −0.618, P < 0.001), however, no significant interaction was found between the intervention and FTN, demonstrating that all participants were impacted by information, regardless of their level of FTN. This knowledge may help in designing effective campaigns that inform consumers on the benefits of edible coatings, whilst at the same time meeting consumers’ desire for ‘naturalness’.

Parcel consolidation approach and routing algorithm for last-mile delivery by unmanned aerial vehicles

The last-mile delivery by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), emerging from the online grocery retailing industry, has attracted much attention and interest from the scientific and industrial communities. In reality, the online retailing platform receives grocery orders and promises ultrafast delivery service to the customers via a two-echelon logistics and distribution network. The uncertain arrivals of the orders have a nontrivial negative effect on the performance of the whole delivery network, which has not been well studied in the literature. This paper investigates the parcel consolidation policy and the UAVs routes for the last-mile delivery from a transshipment site in a distribution network to the final customers. First, this study proposes a nonmyopia consolidation policy considering the upcoming grocery parcels with random arrival times to minimize the total delivery cost including the possible penalty cost due to the delivery delay to the customer. To make the problem tractable in the real-time computational setting, an approximation method based on Bayesian estimation is proposed to reduce a large number of random arrival scenarios of upcoming parcels to an expected scenario. The problem is then approached with a deterministic model under the expected scenario. Subsequently, a discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm is developed to solve the model. In the algorithm, a novel decoding method is designed to evaluate the particles with respect to the constraints of the load and battery capacities of a UAV and a neighborhood search based on reinforcement learning is developed to improve the quality of the particles in the searching process. The experimental results based on a case study validate the performance of the proposed parcel consolidation approach and the UAV routing algorithm. Some findings are given based on the variations of benchmarks with different distributions of customer locations. The approaches and insights in this paper could be used as a reference for last-mile delivery by UAVs.

Data-Driven Order Fulfillment Consolidation for Online Grocery Retailing

Improving fulfillment efficiency is critical for long-term sustainability of online grocery retailing. In this paper, we study reducing order fulfillment cost by order consolidation. Motivated by the observation that a significant percentage of buyers place multiple orders within a short time interval, we propose a scheme that attempts to consolidate such “multiorders” to reduce the number of parcels and hence, the shipping cost. At the same time, it cannot significantly disturb the existing order fulfillment process or undermine the customer service level. Successful execution of the scheme requires a prediction of multiorder probabilities and a control policy that selectively prioritizes order processing. For the prediction task, we formulate a binary classification problem and use machine-learning algorithms to predict in real time the probability of a multiorder. For the control task, our proposal is to hold arriving orders in a temporary order pool for potential consolidation and to determine the release timing by a dynamic program. The proposed solution is estimated to capture 92.8% of all the multiorders at the cost of holding the orders for about 20.3 minutes on average. This translates to more than 10 million U.S. dollars of order fulfillment cost saving annually. History: This paper was refereed.

Online grocery shopping intentions in the post COVID-19 context: a case of millennial generations in Bangladesh

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore factors and their impacts influencing online grocery shopping intentions among customers in the post COVID-19 situation. Moreover, the study aims at evaluating the mediating roles of shopping habits during COVID-19 between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and post COVID-19 online grocery shopping intentions.Design/methodology/approachBased on a review of the literature and collection of 401 useable valid responses, the study was conducted through structured questionnaires applying personal interview technique. The subsequent analysis was conducted through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) using Smart PLS 3.3.3.FindingsThe study findings revealed that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and shopping habits during COVID-19 have a significant influence on post COVID-19 online grocery shopping intentions. Also, the study has uncovered that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use significantly influence shopping habits during COVID-19 among customers. Furthermore, the current study has revealed that hopping habit during COVID-19 significantly mediates the relationship between perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and post COVID-19 online grocery shopping intentions.Practical implicationsThe study findings have provided practical suggestions of developing and improving technological platforms to attract new customers for online grocery shopping. Further, the study suggests that online grocery retailers should apply adjusted pricing strategies using coupons and discount offers.Originality/valueThis paper investigates factors and its impacts on online grocery shopping intentions in post COVID-19 context. Therefore, the study uncovers the factors that add value to understanding customers' post COVID-19 online grocery shopping intentions by integrating perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use and shopping habits during COVID-19.

Sustainability ambassadorship - the role of the store manager in development of in-store sustainability communication

ABSTRACT The food industry, in general, and the retail grocery sector, in particular, have gone through an extensive transformation regarding sustainability communication. The retail grocery store is the stage on which in-store sustainability communication is triggered and incentivized. This paper focuses on the role of the store manager and is guided by the purpose to explore what roles and functions a store manager may perform as sustainability ambassador, and in what ways the dynamics between the central and store level may influence how sustainability is reflected and communicated in the retail store. The study draws on a qualitative and interpretative approach. The empirics are based on interviews with retail store managers in three Swedish grocery retailers. Through our empirical investigation, six different actions have been identified that both separately and in combination contribute to the field by giving a more nuanced view of what role and functions a store manager may perform as sustainability ambassador.

The Evaluation of the Implementation of Boundary System in B2B Relations with Suppliers (Case Study: A Retail Grocery, PT. X)

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the implementation of the boundary system in an effort to better business to business (B2B) relations than the retail company PT. X to suppliers who conform to the concept of levers of control with the support of existing compliance programs in the company. Within the levers of control, the boundary system is a control strategy to determine the company's competitive position. This study used a qualitative methodology, which was designed as an intensive case study involving several methods of data collection and analysis including interviews, field observations and document analysis. The results of this study indicate the ineffectiveness of the boundary system in management support in the implementation of the boundary system, the application of business conduct boundaries, and the implementation of government regulations even though the compliance program in the PT. X company has been effective, causing the main dimensions of successful collaboration in business relations with suppliers to not be achieved.

Dollar store expansion and independent grocery retailer contraction

AbstractThis paper examines the effects of dollar store entry on independent grocery retailers in the United States between 2000 and 2019. We utilized an establishment‐level dataset comprising all grocery retailers and dollar stores in the country. Our findings indicate that dollar store entry is associated with a 5.7% decrease in sales, a 3.7% reduction in employment, and a 2.3% rise in the likelihood of independent grocery retailers quitting the business. These adverse entry effects are three times larger in rural than urban areas. Event studies indicate that the negative impact on sales and employment disappears gradually in urban areas but persists in rural communities. We document differences in treatment effects of dollar store entry across regions, retail formats, and time.

Optimal Strategies of the Online-to-Offline Instant Delivery Service of Grocery Retailers

The advantages of an O2O instant delivery service over the traditional retail model for grocery retailers in the local market lie in the ability to increase sales by expanding consumer channels. This study aims to explore how merchants can optimize their pricing and delivery service decisions, including order delivery fees, range, and starting price, to maximize profit with the adoption of instant delivery services. Using the Stackelberg game model, the research examines the retailers’ optimal decision-making within the classical Hotelling linear city model while considering a more realistic cost differentiation between online and offline services. The analysis incorporates variations in the number of consumer purchases and geographic locations. The study finds that increasing product prices while maintaining zero delivery fees consistently outperforms charging delivery fees while keeping prices constant in terms of their impact on retailers. Additionally, rarely-discussed aspects like starting delivery price and delivery range are also considered. Comparing parameter variations between the traditional retail model and the O2O instant delivery model leads to three primary conclusions. Firstly, the cost disparity between online and offline services significantly affects the optimal price and profit for the retailer. Secondly, when the cost of online service is slightly higher, setting a starting delivery price can enhance retailers’ profits compared to not having a starting price. Finally, the study outlines three strategies for implementing the O2O instant delivery model and suggests that defining a reasonable delivery range can help merchants reduce costs, improve delivery efficiency, and ultimately increase profits.

Proactive food waste prevention in grocery retail supply chains – An exploratory study

PurposeRegarding the retail internal supply chain (SC), both retailers and research are currently focused on reactive food waste reduction options in stores (e.g. discounting or donations). These options reduce waste after a surplus has emerged but do not prevent an emerging surplus in the first place. This paper aims to reveal how retailers can proactively prevent waste along the SC and why the options identified are impactful but, at the same time, often complex to implement.Design/methodology/approachThe authors follow an exploratory approach for a nascent topic to obtain insights into measures taken in practice. Interviews with experts from retail build the main data source.FindingsThe authors identify and analyze 21 inbound, warehousing, distribution and store-related options applied in grocery retail. Despite the expected high overall impact on waste, prevention measures in inbound logistics and distribution and warehousing have not been intensively applied to date.Practical implicationsThe authors provide a structured approach to mitigate waste within retailers' operations and categorize the types of barriers that need to be addressed.Originality/valueThis research provides a better understanding of prevention options in retail operations, which has not yet been empirically explored. Furthermore, this study conceptualizes prevention and reduction options and reveals implementation patterns.

Strategies to improve customer service in delivery time slot management

AbstractIn several online retail contexts, such as grocery retailing, customers have to be present at the moment of delivery, that is, an attended home delivery service is in place. This requirement adds new challenges to this channel, often leading to narrow profitability. From an operations perspective, this service is performed with the retailer offering multiple time slots for the customer to choose from. Retailers target a cost‐efficient delivery process that also accounts for customers' preferences by properly managing the options to show to customers, that is, time slot management. This study analyzes a dynamic slotting problem, that is, choosing the best slots to show for each customer, which is close to many practical cases pursuing a customer service orientation. We study two new strategies to improve customer service while satisfying cost‐efficiency goals: (i) enforcing a constraint on the minimum number or percentage of slots to show to customers and (ii) integrating multiple days when tackling this challenging problem. Our results show under which conditions these proposed strategies can lead to win‐win situations for both customer service and profit.

An Economic Impact of Grocery Retailers in Mannargudi

The grocery retail sector has a significant profitable impact on original husbandry, employing millions of workers to give consumers safe, healthy, and affordable food every day. Agriculture is the top occupation of the people of Mannargudi. The city is located at a distance of 28 km from the headquarters Thiruvarur, 36 km from Kumbakonam, 40 km from Thanjavur and 310 km from the state capital Chennai. The city saw a growth of merchandising by 40 percent over the last few years. Retail formats include departmental stores, shopping malls and grocery stores. The retail sector has 500 outlets which include an unorganized sector similar to grocery stores and other traditional formats. Hence buying groceries becomes accessible. Let us have a look at the different products offered by grocery stores in Mannargudi.

Predicting health related deprivation using loyalty card digital footprints

Predicting health related deprivation using loyalty card digital footprints

Strategic investment modelling for retail sector post COVID-19

Amidst the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the online grocery retail industry has faced significant obstacles. To overcome these challenges and adapt to shifting customer attitudes, retailers must embrace innovative strategies. These include implementing a home delivery service with rigorous sanitization measures, leveraging social media advertising to enhance consumer awareness, and utilizing preservation technology to uphold grocery items’ quality and freshness. In such a dynamic setting, it is only rational to acknowledge that the demand for products relies heavily upon the delivery firm’s service performance and the awareness it generates. The present study explores these vital investments within the online grocery retail store, comparing them with models lacking such investments. By optimizing investments in preservation technology, service, and advertisement, the model seeks to maximize the retailer’s overall profit. The findings unequivocally demonstrate that despite incurring additional costs, these investments wield financial dominance, boosting the total profit by an impressive 32%. The study concludes by presenting valuable insights derived from numerical and sensitivity analysis, offering invaluable guidance for the effective management of grocery items in the current post-pandemic era.

Reengineering of Micro-Merchandising as a Business Process Using Neurotechnologies

The article presents a study of merchandising as a business process. The main problems in micro-merchandising are revealed. The expediency of using artificial intelligence technologies in micro-merchandising to increase its economic efficiency is substantiated. An approach to the reengineering of micro-merchandising based on a comparison of a planogram and a realogram using artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is proposed. The evolutionary stages of development of neurotechnologies are determined: from the formalization of the concept of a neural network and the representation of complex biological processes by mathematical models to the achievement of the level of human functionality in recognizing the surrounding world and predicting the future. The article analyzes foreign and domestic experience in the use of AI technologies in various areas of human life, as well as in marketing and merchandising in retail, and proposes an approach to improve the audit of the location of goods on the shelf, taking into account the replacement of intellectual human labor with artificial intelligence and the exclusion of human factors, checking the realogram and planogram using neurotechnologies. The use of artificial intelligence in reengineering is considered, an algorithm for auditing micro-merchandising as a business process is described, a problematic interview with grocery retail merchandisers is conducted, and the hypothesis about the possibility of automating a business process is confirmed. Software (Neisla application) was developed to automate the business process, its application was tested in a large regional retail chain of the Irkutsk region in Irkutsk. As a product category, "chocolate bars" are used. As a result of testing within one month, an increase in the economic efficiency of micro-merchandising as a business process was confirmed.

Exploring digital transformation and technological innovation in emerging markets

PurposeThis research aims to fill the research gaps regarding customer preferences for digitalisation to create value for retailers and customers, as well as focus on retail change and shopping behaviour in grocery retail stores in the emerging market.Design/methodology/approachThis paper contributes to the research in this area by evaluating customers' and retailers' attitudes towards digital transformation in retailing through interviews. Methodologically, 200 questionnaires were gathered, and data were analysed with the partial least squared structural equation modelling method.FindingsThe findings of this study reveal that the effect of digital transformation in the retail industry will be more apparent in an emerging market.Originality/valueThe paper's originality consists in understanding the future retail structure in an emerging market. Notably, focussing on business-to-consumer businesses appears helpful in distinguishing between behavioural (buying) intention and online buying behaviour (actual usage) in an emerging market.