High Sales Volume Research Articles

Influence of high molecular weight polypeptides on the mouthfeel of commercial beer

Low malt beers have high sales volumes in Japan, but improving their mouthfeel, including softness, smoothness and decreasing astringency, is challenging because the compounds responsible remain unclear. In this study, beer was fractionated by preparative size-exclusion chromatography, with the polypeptide and maltodextrin fractions purified using solid-phase extraction and ion-exchange resin. Sensory data from a spike test showed that the mouthfeel (softness, smoothness, and reduced astringency) of low malt beer was improved both by the degree of polymerisation (DP) of maltodextrins (DP of 2-10; at increased concentration of 40 to 60%; P < 0.01) and by 10 - 20 kilodalton (kDa) high molecular weight (HMW) polypeptide and 2-3 kDa low molecular weight polypeptide fractions (at a 50% increase in concentration; P < 0.01). Furthermore, highly purified 10 to 20 kDa HMW polypeptides improved the softness and smoothness and decreased the astringency (at a 25% increase in concentration). This report is the first to provide experimental sensory data indicating that HMW polypeptides improve the mouthfeel of beer. Based on these findings, a new low malt beer was developed that showed significantly higher levels of the 10-20 kDa HMW polypeptides with an overall improved mouthfeel. Mass spectrometric analysis of the 10 to 20 kDa proteins identified several unique foam positive proteins, including barley dimeric alpha-amylase inhibitor-1 and non-specific lipid-transfer protein 1. These 10-20 kDa HMW proteins are likely to be responsible for the improved mouthfeel of beer. © 2020 Kirin Holdings Kabushik Kaisha Co. Ltd. Journal of the Institute of Brewing published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The Institute of Brewing & Distilling

전시참가업체의 효율성 분석에 관한 연구 - SEOUL FOOD 사례를 중심으로

The study aims to analyze the characteristics of exhibitors and the achievement of their purpose of participation, based on which the efficiency of exhibitors’ input and output is measured. The study’s population was set as domestic companies that have participated in SEOUL FOOD in 2019 and the average values of input and output factors according to company characteristics and purpose of participation were calculated and used for analyzing the DEA (data envelope analysis) effectiveness with the Frontier Analyst program. Results indicate that exhibitors with long firm ages were highly effective, and those with high sales volumes also enjoyed relatively high efficiency and exhibitors that participated more frequently were relatively more effective. Analysis of efficiency according to the purposes of participation showed that those seeking domestic business and seeking domestic business and communication were more effective compared to those seeking export or seeking multiple purposes.

Standardization of Crude Drugs for the Japanese Pharmacopoeia

The latest edition of the Japanese Pharmacopoeia (JP) is the second supplement to the 17th edition containing 324 herbal medicines, of which 176 are crude drugs and 35 are Kampo extracts. Although 148 prescription Kampo extracts are covered by national health insurance, only 35 are listed in the latest JP. However, the sales volume of these 35 Kampo extracts accounts for more than 70% of the total sales volume of Kampo products, as Kampo formulas with higher sales volumes are preferentially listed in the JP. The JP officially defines the origin and description of the listed crude drugs and Kampo extracts and elaborates on their limited values and testing methods. As crude drugs and Kampo extracts are derived from natural products and have the characteristics of traditional medicines, some degree of variation has been experienced during their long-term use, which is one of the crucial differences from chemical drugs. The Japanese Pharmacopoeia Committee on Crude Drugs promotes standardization of the JP by reflecting the actual Japanese market situation. This review explains the characteristics of natural and traditional medicines in crude drug-related items, the JP drafting process and points to be noted, and the significance of listing in the JP.

Sales or reviews, which matters more to consumer preference and online advertising? – evidence from eye-tracking and self-reporting

Sales volume and the percentage of positive reviews are viewed as learning sources in online shopping. This paper examines the relative effect of these two attributes and determines the underlying mechanism that can be applied to online advertising. We verify the existence of negativity bias in online reviews through an eye-tracking experiment. Consumers underestimate the rating of products with high sales volume relative to products with low sales volume due to negativity bias. However, presenting a percentage of positive reviews cue can eliminate the rating difference. Furthermore, when both the percentage of positive reviews and sales volume are high, consumers prefer products with lower sales volume but higher percentages of positive reviews rather than products with higher sales volume but lower percentages of positive reviews. The percentage of positive reviews is more diagnostic than sales volume, which can be used as endorsements in online advertisement to positively affect consumers’ preferences.

How Does a Return Period Policy Change Affect Multichannel Retailer Profitability?

Problem definition: This study extends the literature on consumer returns by assessing the impact of return period policy change on a multichannel retailer performance. Academic/practical relevance: Many retailers have recently sought to tighten their return policy by decreasing the return period window. We investigate the impact of such a policy change on sales, returns, and profitability for a multichannel retailer. Methodology: We conduct a multimethodology research in which we (1) develop theoretical predictions using an analytical model, (2) empirically test analytical predictions using data from a jewelry retailer that changed its return policy from 100 days to 60 days, and (3) extend the empirical analysis to estimate the impact of the policy change on profitability. Results: We find that the return period policy change does not have any statistically significant effect on sales and return rates for online stores, whereas it decreases sales by 8%, return rate by 2.7 percentage points, and profit by 7.3% per brick-and-mortar store, corresponding to a 2.7% decrease in annual sales for the retailer. The two likely explanations for the insignificant effect for online stores are (1) the low proportion of online customers affected by the policy change and (2) the return displacement effect—in response to the policy change, some affected customers likely accelerate their product evaluation to return within the restrictive policy period. Our analysis also demonstrates that a return period policy change may increase retail profitability if a majority of retail stores operates under high sales volume and high return rates. Managerial implications: Our study suggests that managers of multichannel retailers that consider a change in their return period policies should carefully assess their operational structures and evaluate consumer return behavior at each channel, particularly over the time window between the proposed policy period and the existing policy period.

The impacts of market size and data-driven marketing on the sales mode selection in an Internet platform based supply chain

This study investigates a platform’s preferences between agency selling and reselling considering the impact of data-driven marketing (DDM). Four models are built: No-DDM+agency selling, No-DDM+reselling, DDM+agency selling, DDM+reselling. Sales volumes, profits and profit growth rates in different sales modes are compared. Results show that with an increase in DDM efficiency, the platform is more willing to adopt the reselling mode. In addition, without DDM, the sales mode with higher sales volume is not more profitable within a certain market size. DDM can help avoid this phenomenon to a certain extent.

Coordinated non–monetary sales promotions: Buy one get one free contract

As a marketing scheme, proposing free extra items can motivate consumers to buy more. In this paper, a specific type of motivational contracts, Buy One Get One free (BOGO) scheme, has been analyzed. Under the investigated BOGO scheme, if certain quantities of goods are purchased, the consumer will get a specified quantity of extra goods for free. Such a scheme can stimulate demand and results in more profit for supply chain (SC) members. The problem is to determine how many extra free items should be served to consumers in a BOGO bundle. To optimize a BOGO contract, this study considers a two-echelon SC consists of a single retailer and a manufacturer. At first, the investigated SC is analyzed under the decentralized decision-making processes, and the BOGO contract is optimized from the retailer’s perspective. After that, the optimal contract is derived for the whole SC under the centralized decision-making structure. Creating a win-win situation and motivating both parties to be committed to the optimal BOGO, a coordinated decision-making scheme is developed. Sensitivity analyses and managerial insights indicate better performance of the SC (i.e., higher sales volume and higher profitability) under the proposed coordinated decision scheme.

Pharmaceutical Price and Spending Controls in France: Lessons for the United States

As U.S. policymakers consider strategies to control pharmaceutical spending, they can learn from France, which has stopped drug spending growth without slowing access to innovative medicines. France determines the comparative therapeutic value of new drugs. Insurance pays more for drugs superior to their comparator and the same or less for drugs offering modest or no improvement. Contracts require discounts for high sales volume and prohibit price increases. In addition, payers reduce prices of older drugs. Furthermore, Parliament sets an insurance pharmaceutical spending budget, and manufacturers pay clawbacks when spending exceeds the budget. France offers these lessons: setting prices based on added therapeutic value is a principled means to cap new drug prices and provides incentives for manufacturers to negotiate prices. Restricting formularies can help lower prices. Insurers can link prices and quantity to control spending and improper uses. Insurers can use global budgets to control spending and negotiate prices. Contracts can prevent manufacturers from raising prices after launch. External reference pricing can reduce price discrimination but is difficult to implement. Nations can ensure rapid access to new drugs while controlling prices. Regulation and competition are complementary strategies to control drug spending.

Impact of Live Chat on Purchase in Electronic Markets: The Moderating Role of Information Cues

Live chat tools have emerged as a channel for fostering synchronous communication between sellers and buyers. However, a positive link between live chat and conversion does not suggest causation because customers with high purchase intention are more likely to initiate live chat in the first place. Our research accounts for such selection and studies the impact of live chat with the presence of information cues: product sales volumes and seller feedback scores. Using granular data from Alibaba, we find that live chat can increase purchase probability of tablets by 15.99%. Further, the substitutional or complementary patterns between live chat and the information cues allow us to understand how live chat tools change the ways consumers evaluate product quality and seller credibility. We observe a substitutional effect of live chat on seller feedback score such that sellers with low feedback scores benefit more from live chat conversations than sellers with high scores. On the contrary, products with a high past sales volume sell better after live chat, indicating a reinforcement effect. Such findings deepen our understanding of the difference between various information cues in electronic markets and delineate the specific type of benefit live chat brings if put into best use by sellers and online marketplace designers.

The Market for Heritage: Evidence From eBay Using Natural Language Processing

The trade in antiquities and cultural objects has proven difficult to understand and yet is highly dynamic. Currently, there are few computational tools that allow researchers to systematically understand the nature of the legal market, which can also potentially provide insights into the illegal market such as types of objects traded and countries trading antiquities. Online sales in antiquities and cultural objects are often unstructured data; relevant cultural affiliations, types, and materials for objects are important for distinguishing what might sell, but these data are rarely organized in a format that makes the quantification of sales a simple process. Additionally, sale locations and the total value of sales are relevant to understanding the focus and size of the market. These data all provide potentially useful insights into how the market in antiquities and cultural objects is developing. Based on this, this work presents the results of a machine learning approach using natural language processing and dictionary-based searches that investigate relatively low-end but high sales volume objects sold on eBay’s U.S. site, where sales are often international, between October 2018 and May 2019. The use of named entity recognition, using a conditional random field approach, classifies objects based on the cultures in which they come from, what type of objects they are, and what the objects are made of. The results indicate that objects from the United Kingdom, affiliated with the Roman period, mostly constituting jewelry, and made of metals sell the most. Metal and jewelry objects, in fact, sold more than other object types. Other important countries for selling ancient and cultural objects include the United States, Thailand, Germany, and Cyprus. Some countries appear to more greatly sellspecific types of objects, such as Egypt being a leader in selling Islamic, terracotta, stone, and wood artifacts and Germany selling Viking/early Medieval weapons. Overall, the approach and tool used demonstrate that it is possible to monitor the online antiquities and cultural objects market while potentially gaining useful insights into the market. The tool developed is provided as part of this work so that it can be applied for other cases and online sites, where it can be applied in real time or using historical data.

The Impact of Brand Image and Marketing Mix on Buying Decision for Toyota Calya

Toyota Calya is one of Toyota’s product which succeed in achieving high sales volume based on GAIKINDO’s data. Toyota Calya sold around 68.038 unit for the year 2017 only. This fantastic sales volume record was indicated to be influenced by the strong brand image of Toyota in the mind of Indonesian consumers and the core elements which built Toyota Calya as a solid offering, includes product, price, place, and promotion. This research is designed to identify the impact of brand image and marketing mix variable on Toyota Calya’s buying decision. This quantitative research is conducted on 60 selected responders based on purposive sampling method. The method of analysis used in this research is multiple linear regression. The data analysis result shows that there is significant evidence to conclude that brand image and marketing mix variable has positive impact on Toyota Calya’s buiying decision. The well known Toyota brand and the easiness to gather relevan information about the product considered as strong contributor on Toyota Calya buying decision.

To Brush or Not to Brush: Product Rankings, Customer Search and Fake Orders

Brushing---online merchants placing fake orders of their own products---has been a widespread phenomenon on major e-commerce platforms. One key reason why merchants brush is that it boosts their rankings in search results. Products with higher sales volume are more likely to rank higher. Additionally, rankings matter because consumers face search frictions and narrow their attention to only the few products that show up at the top. Thus, fake orders can affect consumer choice. We focus on this search-ranking aspect of brushing and build a stylized model to understand merchants’ strategic brushing behavior as well as how it affects consumers. We consider a high-type merchant (who sells a more popular product) and a low-type merchant (who sells a less popular product) competing on an e-commerce platform where product rankings evolve over time. We find that if brushing gets more costly for merchants (e.g., due to stricter platform policies), it may sometimes surprisingly harm consumers as it may only blunt brushing by the high-type merchant but intensify brushing by the low-type merchant. If search is less costly for consumers (e.g., due to improved search technologies), it may not always benefit consumers, either. Moreover, the design of the ranking algorithm is critical: placing more weight on sales volume-related factors may trigger a non-monotone change in consumer welfare; tracking recent sales only as opposed to cumulative sales does not always dial down brushing and, in fact, may sometimes cause the low-type merchant to brush more.

The Impact of Brand Image and Marketing Mix on Buying Decision for Toyota Calya

Toyota Calya is one of Toyota’s product which succeed in achieving high sales volume based on GAIKINDO’s data. Toyota Calya sold around 68.038 unit for the year 2017 only. This fantastic sales volume record was indicated to be influenced by the strong brand image of Toyota in the mind of Indonesian consumers and the core elements which built Toyota Calya as a solid offering, includes product, price, place, and promotion. This research is designed to identify the impact of brand image and marketing mix variable on Toyota Calya’s buying decision. This quantitative research is conducted on 60 selected responders based on purposive sampling method. The method of analysis used in this research is multiple linear regression. The data analysis result shows that there is significant evidence to conclude that brand image and marketing mix variable has positive impact on Toyota Calya’s buiying decision. The well known Toyota brand and the easiness to gather relevan information about the product considered as strong contributor on Toyota Calya buying decision.

Kampo pharmaceutical products in the Japanese health‐care system: Legal status and quality assurance

ABSTRACTObjectiveTo accurately present the current situation regarding traditional Japanese medicines (kampo medicines), especially their legal status and quality assurance, and to resolve the misunderstanding regarding kampo medicine.Legal statusKampo medicines have been approved as official medicines by the Japanese government; they are covered by national health insurance and are used regularly in the standard health‐care system in Japan. Kampo medicines accounted for approximately 2.4% of Japan's total pharmaceutical sales in 2015, and the majority were dry extract products for prescription. Currently, 148 of ethical Kampo formulations are covered by the national insurance system, and the official approval standards for over‐the‐counter kampo products have been established for 294 formulations.Quality assuranceThe Japanese Pharmacopoeia (JP) contains monographs on almost all the crude drugs that are the raw materials for kampo medicines. The quality of kampo extract products is ensured through the equivalence of dry extract and two or more marker components with decoction (standard decoction). The JP also contains monographs on formulation extracts that have high sales volumes. For manufacturing, kampo good manufacturing practice (GMP), the self‐imposed standard of the Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Associations of Japan, has been instituted in addition to the standard GMP for conventional medicines. The quantity of pesticide residues, heavy metals and arsenic, and microorganisms in Kampo products and crude drugs is controlled by the JP and manufacturers' voluntary standards.ConclusionKampo medicines are approved as a legal pharmaceutical product of Japan and their quality is highly assured by Japanese authorities and each manufacturer.

B2B relationships on the fast track: An empirical investigation into the outcomes of solution provision

In academic and business literature, suppliers providing solutions to their business-to-business (B2B) customers are often described as achieving increased customer retention, higher sales volumes, and enhanced cross-selling. Yet there is limited empirical evidence to support the positive impact of solutions on these customer-related outcomes. Moreover, it is unclear whether suppliers obtain similar outcomes from buyers at different relationship life-cycle stages. This paper aims to address these two gaps and tests the contingency role of the relationship life-cycle in driving future customer outcomes. It proposes that there is a positive effect for solutions provided to recent customers (labeled as “accelerator” role) rather than to established ones (labeled as “leverage” role). Results from a longitudinal analysis of the sales database of a North American company providing solutions to its customers empirically support the “accelerator” role of solutions.

To Brush or Not to Brush: Product Rankings, Customer Search, and Fake Orders

“Brushing---the practice of online merchants placing fake orders of their own products to artificially inflate sales on e-commerce platforms---has recently received widespread public attention. On the one hand, brushing enables merchants to boost their rankings in search results, because products with higher sales volume are often ranked higher. On the other hand, rankings matter because search frictions faced by customers narrow their attention to only the few products that show up at the top. Thus, fake orders from brushing may affect customer choice. We build a stylized model to understand merchants’ strategic brushing behavior and its welfare implications. We consider two competing merchants selling substitutable products (one of high quality, the other of low quality) in an evolutionary sales-based ranking system that assigns a higher ranking to a product with higher sales. In principle, such an adaptive system improves customer welfare relative to a case in which products are randomly ranked, but it also triggers brushing as an unintended consequence. Since the high-quality merchant receives a favorable bias in the sales-based ranking, he mainly has a defensive brushing incentive, whereas the low-quality merchant mostly has an offensive brushing incentive. As a result, brushing is a double-edged sword for customers. It may lead customer welfare to be even lower than what it would be in a random-ranking system, but in some other cases, it can surprisingly improve customer welfare. If brushing is more difficult for merchants (e.g., due to tougher regulations), it may make customers worse off as it attenuates brushing by the high-quality merchant but induces the low-quality one to brush more aggressively. If search is easier for customers (e.g., due to improved search technologies), it can actually hurt them as it may disproportionately discourage the high-quality merchant from brushing.

Optimization design and computer simulation of enterprise R&amp;D decision model under resource allocation

Taking into account enterprises’ investment on commodity quality and advertisements as important factors that affect sales volume, and the R&D activities are effective measures to reduce production costs and improve commodity competitiveness. Based on the game theory, this paper establishes the price game model among enterprises, and analyzes the relationship of relevant parameters under different competition modes by using computer simulation technology. The simulation results show that the two enterprises will obtain relatively high sales volume and profits in the Stackelberg competition mode, but the absorptive capacity makes the coordination strategy of the R&D stage become unstable. The non-coordination strategy can not only effectively stimulate enterprises to expand the scale of R&D investment to further reduce the cost of production, but also has a positive effect on the follower enterprises in improving sales volume and profits.

Miombo Woodland Mushrooms of Commercial Food Value: A Survey of Central Districts of Zimbabwe

Wild Miombo woodlands mushrooms are a largely ignored nutrition-boosting food and source of income among rural communities of Southern Africa. A survey was conducted in the Gweru, Kwekwe, Shurugwi and Mvuma districts of Zimbabwe to establish the importance of this natural resource in household poverty reduction.Gathered quantities and sales realized were recorded through structured personal interviews targeting two thirds of gatherers with equal numbers of male and female respondents and one key informant in each site. Results showed that of 14 gathered mushroom species (orders Cantharellales, Amanitales and Termitomycetes) across all sites, five species were of varying commercial value. Amanita loosii was the most traded and the only one with available data on sales. Ranked according to their gathered volumes by percent respondents per gathering occasion were A. loosii (97.48%), Termitomyces le-testui (72.94%) (non-mycorrhizal), Cantharellus heinemannianus (62.96%), Lactarius kabansus (46.72%) and C. miomboensis (37.04%). Average selling prices for A. loosii ranged from US$0.10 to US$1.00 per litre (about 600 grammes) across all sites. Average sales per site for a gathering occasion ranged between 20 and 400 litres per vendor across the sites, although up to 800 litres was recorded at Blinkwater for three gatherers. Principal Components Analysis biplots showed Blinkwater and Sebakwe sites had strong associations with high sales volumes and high sales value of A. loosii. It was concluded that, A. loosii, in particular, contributed to an important food and income source in the studied sites, with some communities having a large potential to raise these incomes beyond their current levels provided gathering and marketing methods were improved.

Farmácia Popular Program: pharmaceutical market analysis of antihypertensive acting on the renin-angiotensin system medicines.

This paper aims to analyse changes in the retail pharmaceutical market following policy changes in the Farmácia Popular Program (FP), a medicines subsidy program in Brazil. The retrospective longitudinal analyses focus on therapeutic class of agents acting on the renin-angiotensin system. Data obtained from QuintilesIMS (formerly IMS Health) included private retail pharmacy sales volume (pharmaceutical units) and sales values from 2002 to 2013. Analyses evaluated changes in market share following key FP policy changes. The therapeutic class was selected due to its relevance to hypertension treatment. Market share was analysed by therapeutic sub-classes and by individual company. Losartan as a single product accounted for the highest market share among angiotensin II antagonists. National companies had higher sales volume during the study period, while multinational companies had higher sales value. Changes in pharmaceutical market share coincided with the inclusion of specific products in the list of medicines covered by FP and with increases in or exemption from patient copayment.

The Evaluation of Trade Credit Insurance in Lithuanian Business Market as a Credit Risk Management Tool

Abstract In today’s trade, the vast majority of commercial transactions in both domestic and international trade are concluded by applying trade credit terms. The aim of this article is to analyse the trade credit insurance and, according to the methodology, to evaluate it as a credit risk management tool in the context of Lithuanian business market. The authors have proposed a methodology that combines theoretical and practical research methods. First of all, with assistance of qualitative analysis, the alternative external credit risk management tools were examined. Such analysis allows not only to identify the advantages, disadvantages and benefits of researched risk management tools but also to assess the efficiency and rationality of trade credit insurance in the context of alternative methods. In order to carry out an assessment in the practical aspect, considering the lack of statistical data, it was decided additionally to perform an expert evaluation. After performing an assessment of trade credit insurance, it was concluded that in international trade, with a large buyer portfolio and high sales volume, the trade credit insurance becomes the most effective and rational way to manage credit risk, which eliminates the losses because of the debtor’s insolvency or bankruptcy, manages countries and sector’s risks and helps to discipline the debtor, what determines the decline in overdue accounts frequencies, amounts and volumes.