Multiple Stores Research Articles

An Empirical Study on the Assessment of the Impact of Service Quality on Customer Repurchase Intention in Retail Chain Stores of Khulna District of Bangladesh

Purpose: The study aims to identify how various aspects of service quality impact customer repurchase intention in retail chain stores in Bangladesh. Methodology: The study has been conducted following the quantitative research method. Data were gathered from 100 shoppers via direct surveys done at multiple retail chain stores in Khulna city of Bangladesh. A questionnaire with a five-point Likert scale was used in the study to collect consumer feedback on several elements related to service quality and repurchase intention. SPSS 25 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) was used to analyze the data for Reliability tests, correlations analysis, and regression analysis. Findings: The data show that responsiveness, assurance, and empathy have a substantial effect on customers' likelihood of repurchasing from retail chain stores. Surprisingly, tangible elements such as store appearance and reliability had little influence on customers' propensity to return. Practical Implications: According to the findings, retailers should focus on developing a customer-centric strategy that emphasizes prompt service, trust-building efforts, and encouraging sympathetic relationships. Originality/Value: The study has transformative potential for the retail chain sector, guiding strategic adjustments for enhanced customer experiences, competitive advantages, and long-term growth. Limitations: While the study provides useful insights, its limitations include a limited geographic scope, small sample size and inherent biases caused by the convenience sampling method. To clarify subtle customer behaviors across multiple retail landscapes, future research should include broad retail segments and locales.

Balancing nutrition and budgets: Socio-ecological impacts on nutritional environments of families with low incomes

BackgroundResearch on childhood nutritional environments, which are predictive of a variety of child and family health and wellbeing outcomes, has primarily focused on parenting behaviors and the home food environment. However, broader social and community factors play an important role in shaping nutritional environments during early childhood. Food security is a key example that is closely linked to nutrition-related health disparities, which can arise from constrained financial resources and material deprivations. Understanding parent and caregiver lived experiences related to social and community components of family nutritional environments in the context of economic constraints could help to support multi-level nutritional practices that are optimal for healthy child development. MethodSemi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted using a narrative approach with parents (n = 21) of pre-school aged children living near or below the poverty line. Participants were recruited from social and community service sites pertinent to maternal and child health in Philadelphia where health disparities are highly concentrated. Analysis was conducted using MAX QDA analytic software following a systematic approach for thematic analysis in narrative research. ResultsThree themes describe the feeding and eating environments in the home and community context: 1) Food Procurement and Meal Planning; 2) Family Togetherness; 3) Creativity, Variety, and Flexibility. Creative decision making and food procurement strategies responsive to child preferences were balanced by shopping to save and visiting multiple stores for the best foods and savings. Logistical (e.g., transportation, childcare) and emotional supports facilitated food shopping habits and routines, while lack of trusted childcare, reliable transportation, and social support barriers challenged feeding and eating decisions. ConclusionStrategies for improving cost and time-efficiencies could help support health-promoting nutritional environments of families with food insecurity. Building social and community capacity and facilitating connections to practical supports that include trustworthy childcare and peer support may be particularly important for this population.

Against the Grain: Consumer’s Purchase Habits and Satisfaction with Gluten-Free Product Offerings in European Food Retail

Across the world and within Europe, a growing number of consumers are choosing to buy gluten-free products. Motivations for a gluten-free diet and the consequences of consuming gluten are varied, from a medical necessity for those diagnosed with celiac disease to a range of health complications and discomfort for those who are gluten-intolerant. In this research, 7296 gluten-free consumers across 13 European countries responded to an online survey on the 33 types of gluten-free products purchased, how frequently they purchased them, their satisfaction with gluten-free quality and availability, the problems they have experienced, and the strategies they have employed to cope with these problems. The investigation examines whether and how these consumer attitudes and behaviors differ between those diagnosed with celiac disease, those who are gluten-intolerant, and those who are caregivers for others with a gluten-free diet. The results show that significant differences existed for all these habits and issues across the three gluten-free consumer groups. Specifically, caregivers purchased most of the gluten-free product types more frequently than the other two groups, experienced more availability problems, and were more likely to shop at multiple stores or make their own gluten-free products. Celiac-diagnosed consumers tended to buy gluten-free products more frequently than those who are gluten-intolerant, and they tended to be the most satisfied with the quality and range of gluten-free offerings. Despite purchasing frequency differences between the groups, the results suggest a similar hierarchy of gluten-free products that could provide the foundation for a European gluten-free food basket.

The influence of CSR, social media marketing and store environment on customer purchase intention of cosmetic products

Today's world of intense competition and shifting business practices has led to a huge increase in both client demand and retailer power. For producers to survive and prosper, a long-lasting relationship with consumers is essential. The cosmetics industry in China has experienced remarkable growth in recent years. After the US, the nation ranked as the second-largest cosmetics market globally in 2020. Therefore, the goal of this study is to look into the variables that influence Chinese customers' intentions to purchase cosmetics products in relation to CSR, social media marketing and store environment. Primary data was collected using questionnaires from 220 consumers from multiple cosmetics department stores located in Otto Retail Store in Chengdu, China. The findings derived from the Pearson Correlation Coefficients demonstrate a statistically significant positive association between three variables: CSR, social media marketing and store environment on customer’s purchase intention of cosmetic products at Otto Retail Store, Chengdu, China. The results demonstrate a statistically significant and positive relationship between all three factors on customer’s purchase intention of cosmetic products and are highly significant at 1% level. Store environment has the highest correlation with customer’s purchase intention of cosmetic products (r=0.610, p<0.01), followed by social media marketing (r=0.567, p<0.01) and CSR (r=0.532, p<0.01). Results of regression analysis have been used to test all the hypothesis to ascertain the extent of relationship with the variables that measures factors affecting customer’s purchase intention. All the three independent variables showed significant positive relationship with customer’s purchase intention with p<0.005.

Vendors And Multiple Virtual Stores On Cooperative ECommerce

The Vendors and Multiple Virtual Stores on Cooperative E-Commerce is integrated with the Cooperative Loan Servicing System, Stakeholders Management System, and Events Venue and Hostel Management System. The lack of provisions to offer other services on the side of the customers or buyers can result in less income, resulting in poor scalability of business growth for the grocery store. The researcher gathered data through a series of interviews and by providing questionnaires to the employees and members. Results showed a positive response from employees and members, with strongly Agreed-upon results regarding the system's System Usefulness, Information Quality, and Interface Quality. Using the Vendors and Multiple Virtual Stores on Cooperative ECommerce brought extra income to the Cooperative, which resulted in higher profit. At the same time, it provides convenience to customers by offering other services besides the existing old service, which can result in more customers and lead to higher profits and incomes. Background: A cooperative is an organization run by its members who share the benefits and profits, with productivity enhanced by integrating systems like E-commerce Multi-Store, Hostel Management, Stakeholders Management, and Loan Servicing, along with a Forecasting Model for sales trends. The Internet's evolution has transformed shopping styles, making online shopping increasingly popular and allowing consumers to shop without visiting physical stores. The Vendors and Multiple Virtual Stores on Cooperative E-Commerce aims to address operational issues, expand service reach, and generate additional income for the cooperative and its members by integrating the system into operations. Materials and Methods: The study presents an operational framework encompassing input, process, output, and outcome and emphasizes the use of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) with a focus on prototyping for user feedback and refinement. Data from cooperative members and employees were gathered through interviews and questionnaires, leading to developing, testing, and validating modules for a Cooperative E-Commerce system. Results: The study involved 50 respondents, including 20 cooperative employees and 30 members. The evaluation of system usability through the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ) revealed that respondents strongly agreed on the system's usefulness (mean score: 1.29), information quality (mean score: 1.34), and interface quality (mean score: 1.28). High scores indicate that the system is easy to use, provides clear and helpful information, and has a user-friendly interface, contributing to efficient decision-making and competitive advantage for the organization. Conclusion: The integration of Vendors and Multiple Virtual Stores on the Cooperative E-Commerce platform significantly enhances cooperatives' operational efficiency, market reach, and overall business strategy, with respondents rating the system highly for usefulness, information quality, and interface quality

Perancangan Aplikasi Penjualan Furniture Berbasis Android

Furniture has high added value and significant global competitiveness, largely due to the diversity of natural raw materials available in Indonesia, such as wood, rattan, and bamboo, as well as distinctive and high-quality designs. This advantage is supported by the skills and competence of the available human resources, making Indonesian furniture superior to products from other countries. Product quality is a key element in winning market competition, as it impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty. Masnur Joglo, a furniture company located on Jl. Muara Karya, specializes in producing various types of furniture from high-quality woods such as super mahogany and red teak. However, the purchasing system, which requires customers to visit the store directly and manually record prices, results in inefficiencies in terms of time and transportation costs. Customers often need to visit multiple stores to find the desired product, which is an inefficient process. To address these challenges, this study proposes the development of an Android-based sales application as a solution. This application is designed to expand Masnur Joglo's market reach and facilitate online ordering of furniture products, anytime and anywhere. The study aims to design and develop an Android-based sales information system that can enhance operational efficiency and streamline the sales process while better meeting customer needs. The application development method employs the waterfall model and uses MySQL and Firebase databases.

Forecast Horizon of Dynamic Lot Sizing Problem with Perishable Inventory and Multiple Chain Stores: Shipping and Stockout Cost

Perishable products are very common, but managing inventory of perishable products can be very challenging for firms, especially in distribution systems, including multiple chain stores. In this environment, we consider a dynamic lot-sizing problem faced by a distribution center that dis-patches a single perishable product to multiple chain stores. Demand cannot be backlogged, but it does not have to be satisfied; unsatisfied demand means stockout (lost sale). The first step is to transform the total profit function into a special total cost function. Our next step is to explore the properties of the optimal solution and use them to formulate a dynamic programming algorithm to solve the problem. Furthermore, we establish forecast and decision horizon results, which help the operation manager to decide the precise forecast horizon in a rolling decision-making process. Based on the model setting and the methods of dynamic programming, we obtained two interesting findings: (1) the maximized profit objective function is equivalent to the minimized cost objective function, and (2) the famous zero inventory property conditionally holds in the inventory management of perishable products. On an extensive test bed, useful insights were obtained on the impact of the lifetime of the product and cost parameters on the total cost and length of the forecast horizon. Thus, the contributions of this study are as follows: (1) we explore two structure policies in an optimal solution to devise efficient algorithms to reduce computational complexity; (2) we provide a sufficient condition for forecasting and decision horizons; and (3) we determine that, for a given fixed cost, the median forecast horizon first increases with the lifetime of the product and stockout cost and then remains invariable when it reaches a certain level.

Driving user adoption of mobile apps through platform multihoming: The effects of multihoming delay and multihoming customization

Developers release their mobile apps through multiple app store ecosystems to extend their reach and reduce their dependency on a single distribution platform and its governance mechanisms. While this topic has piqued the interest of a growing number of studies, key multihoming decisions faced by developers including when to multihome mobile apps and whether and how much to customize them for the multihomed platform have not yet been jointly examined. In addition, the potential role that the user value of mobile apps (hedonic or utilitarian) plays in developers’ multihoming decisions has largely been overlooked. To address these gaps, the present study jointly investigates the effects of multihoming delay and multihoming customization on the user adoption of mobile apps on the multihomed platform. It further investigates the moderating effects of the user value of mobile apps. The study employed a large dataset of mobile apps that were initially released through Apple's App Store and subsequently multihomed into Google's Play Store (N = 24,906). By combining traditional count regression model with a machine learning approach, the study derives a range of theoretical and predictive insights that significantly contribute to the mobile app multihoming literature.

Reduced food waste through inventory control despite throwing out food before expiration: Online vs. offline retail

Online retailers throw out food that has not yet expired. This gives rise to the question whether online retailers generate more food waste than offline retailers, who typically throw out food only after it has expired. We focus on the food waste at the retailer which inherently ensues from the logistical set-up. We provide a theoretical discussion of the potential increase in food waste as a result of the inventory control policy and throwing out food that has not yet expired, as is the case for online retailers. Note that the online retailer has some advantages over offline retailers as well. Online retailers benefit from full control of order picking, which is instead often done by the consumer in offline retail. Moreover, the online retailer often benefits from the pooling effect, as offline retailers might use multiple stores to satisfy the same demand volume as an online retailer from a single warehouse. Our numerical experiments with a base-stock policy suggests that online retail actually yields less food waste for many products, despite throwing out food before expiration.

Metaverse Servicescape: Emotional Response to Virtual Retail Design

The highly anticipated global Metaverse market presents a burgeoning arena, particularly in shopping and retail. While physical retail environments have long emphasized the details of exterior and interior servicescape design, the shift to online shopping raises questions about applying these traditional retail principles to the Metaverse setting. This research adopts conjoint analysis to delve into the potential of localized Metaverse retail design by merging consumer emotions, market segmentation, and innovative retail technologies. Using the Pleasure, Arousal, Dominance (PAD) model, we examine Metaverse servicescape attributes, based on real-world counterparts, application in segmenting store design based on consumer preferences. Like in physical retailing cases, music, crowding, and noise are the most influential Metaverse attributes affecting consumer emotion. However, three different clusters emerged according to their emotional responses. Our experiment reveals that Metaverse servicescape attributes may evoke emotional responses akin to their physical counterparts while offering a valuable opportunity for customization that better satisfies market segments. Insights are offered for retailers navigating the dynamic Metaverse landscape, where personalization and localization are now more affordable and where multiple store designs can coexist in digital form—reaching larger markets.

Design and Build API-Based Multistore Marketplace Using Agile Methodology

The business activities of a company require technology that can drive operational efficiency. Marketplaces have become one of the effective marketing channels today for promoting the company's products and services. To reach a broader market, having more than one store on a marketplace is a choice that many companies currently opt for. However, managing multiple stores on marketplaces is not an efficient management approach. This research is an applied study conducted in one startup company (profitto.co.id) that sells developing furniture components, aiming to provide the implementation of an API-based system integration solution to manage multiple stores on Tokopedia and utilizes the Scrum methodology for software development.

An In-House Developed Probiotics Database E-Reference Information for Healthcare Professionals.

Currently available references provide evidence on efficacy of probiotics strains but exclude product-specific information, making it challenging for healthcare professionals (HCPs) to provide suitable probiotic recommendations to consumers. This study describes the development and evaluation of an online probiotics e-reference database to assist HCPs in delivering evidence-based recommendations on probiotics to consumers. The database currently consists of 556 clinical studies collated through PubMed literature search, 753 probiotic products from multiple retail stores in Singapore and 5708 unique product-study links. Users can search for probiotics based on indication, product or strain. Based on a pilot evaluation by 25 pharmacists practising in hospital and retail settings, 84% agreed that the database helped in assessing the efficacy of probiotic products. All (100%) found the database easy to navigate and most (96%) would continue to use the database as an evidence-based e-reference for probiotic information.

Inventory Control for Omnichannel Retailing Between One Warehouse and Multiple Stores

In this article, we research a multiperiod two-echelon inventory control problem for omnichannel retailing [i.e., online channel, offline channel, and buy-online-and-pick-up-in-store (BOPS) channel]. Especially, we jointly consider the limited storage capacity of the stores and the delivery lead time of the warehouse. For the out of stock, the unsatisfied demands for multiple purchasing channels have different processes (i.e., lost sales or backlog), based on the different characteristics of multiple channels. First, we divide the multiperiod inventory control problem for omnichannel retailing into two subproblems (the inventory control problem for the stores and the inventory control problem for the warehouse). Then, to reduce the scale of the first subproblem and the computation effort, we propose a method based on Lagrangian relaxation and value iteration to solve the inventory control problem of stores. Further, based on the results of the inventory control problem of stores, we construct a delay-aware Markov decision process (DAMDP) for the inventory control problem of the warehouse and employ the <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Q</i> -learning technique based on the constructed DAMDP to solve the second subproblem. Besides, we also extend our analysis to the case of the low-level backlog in buying-online channels (i.e., online and BOPS channels). Finally, some numerical experiments are conducted to illustrate the performance of the inventory control policy for omnichannel retailing and reveal some managerial insights.

Artificial intelligence based approach to optimise and automate multiple retail store operations

Artificial intelligence based approach to optimise and automate multiple retail store operations

‘Nobody shops at the neighborhood store’: leveraging a community’s pediatric fresh produce prescription program to inform future participating store redemption locations

ABSTRACT Research examining the nature of food shopping often considers proximity to the nearest or overall distance travelled to multiple stores. Such studies make up a portion of new work on so-called ‘food deserts’ and the issues inherent in the term, including that most people do not shop at their nearest store, and mobility challenges vary vastly from one person to the next. Increasing the knowledge base on shopping characteristics could be useful for behavioral interventions and programs aimed at increasing healthy food shopping. In this study, we examined the shopping characteristics of 627 caregivers whose children were enrolled in a pediatric fresh produce prescription program at one of three large pediatric clinics in Flint, Michigan. We compare these characteristics to the potential of a new food cooperative to improve geographic accessibility to healthy food. In particular, we propose the expansion of the prescription program to this new cooperative for health-related as well as local economic development reasons. Our work bridges topics of interest to researchers and practitioners working in nutrition, food access, and economic development.

AppleGo: React Js (Web Application)

Abstract: In today's digital landscape, users face the inconvenience of visiting multiple platforms to hunt for the best prices on Apple devices. However, "AppleGo" aims to be the solution to this problem. This innovative platform consolidates listings of nearby shops on a single platform, enabling users to effortlessly compare and discover the most favorable prices for their desired devices. "AppleGo" is a groundbreaking online platform designed to revolutionize the way users find Apple devices from nearby shops. It eliminates the need for physically searching multiple stores by offering a comprehensive list of available devices, complete with the best discounts. Users can conveniently identify the ideal option without the hassle of in-person visits. This platform also empowers local Apple shop owners, facilitating easy registration and the showcasing of services and packages to potential customers. By enhancing visibility and expanding their customer reach, "AppleGo" aids shop owners in growing their businesses. In essence, the platform bridges the gap between users and shop owners, creating a win-win solution that saves time and effort for users and boosts business prospects for local shops.

Modeling the Application of IHE QRPH Profiles in Data Integration Centers: A Practical Approach with 3LGM2.

The Data Integration Centers (DICs), all part of the German Medical Informatics Initiative (MII), prepare routine care data captured in university hospitals to enable its reuse in clinical research. Tackling this challenging task requires them to maintain multiple data stores, implement the necessary transformation processes, and provide the required terminology services, all while also addressing the use case specific needs researchers might have. An MII wide application of the standardized profiles defined in the IHE QRPH domain might therefore be able to drastically reduce the overhead at any one DIC. The MII DIC reference model built in 3LGM2, a method to describe complex information system architectures, serves as a starting point to evaluate whether such an application is possible. We first extend the IHE modeling capabilities of 3LGM2 to also support the five profiles from the QRPH domain that our experts evaluated as relevant in the MII DIC context. We then expand the DIC reference model by some IHE QRPH actors and transactions, showing that their application could be beneficial in the MII DIC context, provided they surpass their trial status.

Enhancement of a probiotics practice reference database for healthcare professionals

A probiotics practice reference database (https://bit.ly/sg-probiotics-ref) compiling probiotic products and clinical evidence on probiotics’ efficacy was previously developed to help healthcare professionals (HCPs) in making appropriate probiotic recommendations. This database has been enhanced and updated to contain published clinical studies after 2019 and probiotic products from multiple retail stores. A further 275 study excerpts and 304 products were newly added, thus resulting in the updated database containing a total of 859 study excerpts, 753 products and 5708 product-study links. The database was also enhanced with new features to improve search flexibility. A pilot evaluation of the database among 25 hospital and community pharmacists showed that the majority agreed that the database provided complete, comprehensive and relevant information on probiotic products and indications (72–92%), was useful and applicable to local practice (64–88%) and was user-friendly (92–100%). In addition, most indicated that they would recommend the database to others and continue to use it for probiotics information (96% each). Our findings showed potential in the database being used as an evidence-based resource for HCPs practice. Future work will aim to expand on and validate the database content, as well as evaluate its application among other groups of HCPs.

A federated approach for detecting data hidden in icons of mobile applications delivered via web and multiple stores

An increasing volume of malicious software exploits information hiding techniques to cloak additional attack stages or bypass frameworks enforcing security. This trend has intensified with the growing diffusion of mobile ecosystems, and many threat actors now conceal scripts or configuration data within high-resolution icons. Even if machine learning has proven to be effective in detecting various hidden payloads, modern mobile scenarios pose further challenges in terms of scalability and privacy. In fact, applications can be retrieved from multiple stores or directly from the Web or social media. Therefore, this paper introduces an approach based on federated learning to reveal information hidden in high-resolution icons bundled with mobile applications. Specifically, multiple nodes are used to mitigate the impact of different privacy regulations, the lack of comprehensive datasets, or the computational burden arising from distributed stores and unofficial repositories. Results collected through simulations indicate that our approach achieves performances similar to those of centralized blueprints. Moreover, federated learning demonstrated its effectiveness in coping with simple “obfuscation” schemes like Base64 encoding and zip compression used by attackers to avoid detection.

Inventory Control and Learning for One-Warehouse Multistore System with Censored Demand

Efficient Learning Algorithms for Dynamic Inventory Allocation in Multiwarehouse Multistore Systems with Censored Demand Motivated by collaboration with a prominent fast-fashion retailer in Europe, the researchers focus their attention on the one-warehouse multistore (OWMS) inventory control problem, specifically addressing scenarios in which the demand distribution is unknown a priori. The OWMS problem revolves around a central warehouse that receives initial replenishments and subsequently distributes inventory to multiple stores within a finite time horizon. The objective lies in minimizing the total expected cost. To overcome the hurdles posed by the unknown demand distribution, the researchers propose a primal-dual algorithm that continuously learns from demand observations and dynamically adjusts inventory control decisions in real time. Thorough theoretical analysis and empirical evaluations highlight the promising performance of this approach, offering valuable insights for efficient inventory allocation within the ever-evolving retail industry.