Online Retail Business Research Articles

Online food retail business and consumer behavior after the COVID-19 pandemic

At the end of 2019 the world experienced a great unexpected change by the generation of the pandemic caused by the COVID-19, where companies and consumers experienced changes in order to face this situation. The objective of this research was to conduct a study of online food sales businesses and consumer behaviour derived from the pandemic COVID-19 in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico, in order to understand these changes, detect areas of opportunity and establish improvement strategies that strengthen this type of post-pandemic businesses. A quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional methodology was used, a convenience sampling was carried out with 120 cases and the measurement instrument used was based on the survey conducted by Huaman, Nuñez and Untama using the Likert scale, with which information of a social, personal, labour income, quality of care and bio safety nature was obtained [20]. The main results of the study indicate that there is a significant change in consumer behaviour with respect to online food businesses, especially in the form of online and physical purchase, as well as in the bio safety factor.

Navigating the platform economy: Crafting a customer analytics capability instrument

The prevalence of the platform economy is rapidly increasing, primarily driven by the incorporation of big data into the digital business environment. Big data contains substantial customer information, necessitating analytics to process such data. Despite the acceleration in customer data, researchers lack knowledge about the tools that constitute Customer Analytics Capability (CAC) within the online retail business context. Through a multi-phase research design, we develop and test an instrument for CAC within the spectrum of the platform economy. We validate a multidimensional and higher-order CAC framework comprising value creation, delivery, and management. We establish the nomological validity by identifying the instrument's significant impact on customer-related performance. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of CAC in shaping customer-centric outcomes within the expanding platform economy.

Nykaa: retailing decisions in an emerging market

Learning outcomes By working through the case and assignment questions, students will be able to conduct a marketing environmental analysis to aid strategic decisions; analyse the first-mover advantages of a retail firm and how these can be sustained; comprehend online retail business models and the challenges therein; understand the trade-offs of online/offline retail experiences specific to an emerging market’s beauty and personal care sector; conceptualize and formulate actionable growth strategies that balance the individual and collective requirements of brick and mortar and retail e-commerce environments. Case overview/synopsis The case is set in 2022, right after Nykaa – the pioneer of beauty and wellness e-commerce platforms in India makes a blockbuster stock market debut in 2021. Starting in 2012 with a disruptive online model for selling beauty and wellness products online in India, Nykaa had come a long way with expansions in physical retail and other segments such as fashion. The firm, which initially aimed to be a virtual store, is now thinking of aggressively expanding in the brick-and-mortar retail space as it opens its 85th retail outlet. Falguni S. Nayar, founder and CEO of Nykaa, wanted to roll out 300 physical stores targeting 100 cities in India in the next couple of years. She aspired to establish Nykaa as a category leader as the “Indian Sephora” in the beauty and personal care market. Nykaa’s first-mover advantage in the online beauty and personal care marketplace worked well to establish it as a brand with positive endorsements by digital shoppers that enhanced the investment potential with potential financiers. However, the pandemic had brought every physical retailer to the online platform. Most e-commerce platforms dealing in grocery to lifestyle had added personal care products to their existing merchandise. Additionally, several start-ups had ventured into the online marketplace. Online was a cluttered marketplace with little to no differentiation. In this bloodbath, would the first-mover advantage for Nykaa in the online space still count as a competitive advantage? Nayar was all set to expand Nykaa’s physical presence aggressively. The concern was that the beauty and personal care segment had also moved online as a function of long stay-at-home periods. In the post-pandemic times, would the customer indeed revert to brick and mortar once again? Nykaa was also into product formulations, but so was every big and small player in the space. What was the differentiated winning formula for the consumer’s heart and mind? Complexity academic level The case can be effectively used in foundation courses in marketing and a wide range of specialized courses on marketing management (core/foundation course), retail marketing and e-commerce/digital marketing and e-commerce for B-school learners. The complex decision points faced by an innovative e-commerce start-up firm on its road to market expansion make the case suitable for niche courses such as Marketing for Start-ups. Moreover, learners in executive MBA programs with considerable experience can benefit from the case analysis that balances a growing retail company’s long- and short-run objectives. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

A Study on the Relationship Between Capital Structure and Value of Retail Industry --Taking Amazon as an Example

The outbreak of COVID-19 has driven a change in the residents' consumption structure, prompting further transformation and upgrading of the retail industry and intensifying market competition within the industry. The transformation and upgrading of the retail industry require financial support. When business directions change and business forms are adjusted, financing channels and financing methods need to be expanded to ensure that the company can cope well with the tight capital situation when faced with high-quality financing decisions. The capital structure and financing choices made by the company have a direct bearing on the company's future development and fate in the current state of the online retail business. Additionally, making financial decisions is at the heart of business management. Businesses should pick advantageous financing options to lower borrowing costs. At the same time, the enterprise also should establish effective internal financial controls to lay the financial foundation for the future sustainable development of the enterprise. To improve the enterprise value of the online retail industry as well as the enterprise's ability to withstand risks and enhance its competitiveness, this paper examines the relationship between Amazon's asset structure and enterprise value and makes relevant recommendations to it.

Consumer’s Personality Traits and Knowledge-sharing Behavior on Shoppertainment Platforms: The Mediating Role of Subjective Well-being and Trust

Objectives: This research analyzed the direct and indirect influences of consumer personality on knowledge-sharing behavior through shoppertainment platforms using subjective well-being and trust as mediators. Methods/Analysis: A questionnaire survey was developed and distributed to 320 consumers with familiarity and experience in purchasing products from the TikTok shop and sharing knowledge, information, news, and purchasing experiences with the Thai TikTok community. This study adopted non-probability and purposive sampling techniques, with measurements and structural model assessments performed before hypothesis testing using the partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) with SmartPLS statistical software. Findings: Extraversion and openness to experience had a direct positive influence on trust, while neuroticism showed a direct negative influence on trust. Extraversion had a direct positive influence on subjective well-being, while neuroticism showed a direct negative influence on subjective well-being. Both trust and subjective well-being directly influenced knowledge-sharing behavior on the shoppertainment platform. Extraversion and openness to experience positively influenced knowledge-sharing behavior on the shoppertainment platform via trust, while neuroticism negatively influenced knowledge-sharing behavior on the shoppertainment platform through trust. Importantly, extraversion, openness to experience, and agreeableness positively influenced knowledge-sharing behavior on the shoppertainment platform via subjective well-being, with neuroticism negatively influencing knowledge-sharing behavior on the platform through subjective well-being in the same manner. Novelty/Improvement:Results contribute to an improved understanding of the mechanisms of a robust and competitive online retail business model in the digital era that can best deliver business sustainability by elevating consumers’ knowledge-sharing behaviors to facilitate purchasing decisions on goods or services via shoppertainment platforms. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2023-04-01-014 Full Text: PDF

Faktor yang Mempengaruhi Keputusan Pembelian Produk Fashion di Shopee

Advances in technology have resulted in various developments in the corporate sector. Many companies now offer their goods through web applications. Shopee is one of the most popular online retail business applications today. The aims of this study were to: 1) determine the effect of product, price, promotion, distribution, people, process, and the physical environment on purchasing decisions for fashion products at Shopee, and 2) determine the effect of product, price, promotion, distribution, people, process. , and the physical environment for purchasing decisions for fashion products at Shopee for UINSU Medan students. The approach is quantitative. The participants in this study were UINSU Medan students who had used the Shopee application to shop for fashion items. The findings of this study indicate that product, price, promotion, distribution, people, process, and physical environment variables all influence the purchasing decision of fashion products at Shopee, and that product, price, promotion, distribution, people, process, and physical environment variables are all influence the purchasing decisions of fashion products at Shopee. greatly influenced the decision of UINSU Medan students to shop for fashion at Shopee.
 Keywords:Online Purchase Factor, Online Purchase Decision, Purchase Decision

An Approach towards Deployable Hybrid Product Recommendation Systems for E-Commerce

As India is moving fast towards digital economy, E-commerce industry has been on rise. Many platforms provide their customers with a shopping experience better than actual physical stores. Several E-commerce websites use different methods to improve the customer engagement and revenue. One such technique is the use of personalized recommendation systems, which uses customer’s data like interests, purchase history, ratings to suggest new products, which they may like. Recom-mendation systems are used by E-commerce websites to suggest new products to their users. The products can be suggested based on the top merchants on the website, based on the interests of the user or based the past purchase pattern of the cus-tomer. Recommender systems are machine learning based systems that help users discover new products. Due to the recent pandemic situation of 2020 and 2021, many of the local retail stores have been trying to shift their business to online plat-forms such as dedicated websites or social media. The proposed methodology based on Machine Learning aims to enable local online retail business owners to enhance their customer engagement and revenue by providing users with personalized recommendations using past data using methods such as Collaborative Filtering, Popularity-based and Content-Based Filtering.

The Effects of Social Media Tools Towards Online Retail Businesses in the Consumer Electronics Industry

Businesses nowadays have been adapting to technological advancements since the 21st century to promote their products. The majo]rity of the global population has been exposed to the digital world, and retail businesses have engaged themselves in the online environment. Social media tools have become a significant factor in advertising products and have taken big steps to create innovations in their platforms. Using social media has given online businesses options on managing their performance towards their brand and how to interact with consumers. These digital enhancements toward flourishing online retail businesses have boosted the consumer electronics industry. The study's objective was to provide extensive knowledge of how the different social media platforms and tools significantly affected the performance of online retail businesses belonging to the consumer electronics industry. A quantitative research approach was utilized in this study. The researchers conducted online survey questionnaires and were distributed to 185 respondents. Lastly, the study aims to benefit retail businesses, consumers, and future researchers, who engage in online businesses and how they can stand out from prospective competitors.

The Effects of Social Media Tools on Online Retail Businesses in the Consumer Electronics Industry

Businesses nowadays have been adapting to technological advancements since the start of the 21st century to promote their products. The majority of the global population has been exposed to the digital world, and businesses have engaged themselves in the online environment. Social media tools have become a vital component in advertising products and have contributed significantly to creating countless innovations. Using social media has given online businesses options for managing their performance towards their brand and interacting with consumers through social media platforms. These digital improvements have benefited the consumer electronics industry. The goal of the study was to gain a thorough understanding of how social media platforms and tools impact the performance of online retail businesses in the consumer electronics industry. The study used the quantitative approach, and online survey questionnaires were distributed to 185 respondents. Results revealed that perceived ease of use, social media advertising, and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) all have a positive effect on the performance of online retail businesses in the consumer electronics industry. The implications of this research aim to benefit aspiring online business owners, consumers, and future researchers, and help them maximize social media to make them stand out from prospective competitors. Keywords: customer engagement, digital advertising, online marketing, retail businesses, social media

The Effects of Social Media Tools on Online Retail Businesses in the Consumer Electronics Industry

Abstract Businesses nowadays have been adapting to technological advancements since the start of the 21st century to promote their products. The majority of the global population has been exposed to the digital world, and businesses have engaged themselves in the online environment. Social media tools have become a vital component in advertising products and have contributed significantly to creating countless innovations. Using social media has given online businesses options for managing their performance towards their brand and interacting with consumers through social media platforms. These digital improvements have benefited the consumer electronics industry. The goal of the study was to gain a thorough understanding of how social media platforms and tools impact the performance of online retail businesses in the consumer electronics industry. The study used the quantitative approach, and online survey questionnaires were distributed to 185 respondents. Results revealed that perceived ease of use, social media advertising, and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) all have a positive effect on the performance of online retail businesses in the consumer electronics industry. The implications of this research aim to benefit aspiring online business owners, consumers, and future researchers, and help them maximize social media to make them stand out from prospective competitors. Keywords: customer engagement, digital advertising, online marketing, retail businesses, social media

Real-Time Delivery Time Forecasting and Promising in Online Retailing: When Will Your Package Arrive?

Problem definition: Providing fast and reliable delivery services is key to running a successful online retail business. To achieve a better delivery time guarantee policy, we study how to estimate and promise delivery time for new customer orders in real time. Academic/practical relevance: Delivery time promising is critical to managing customer expectations and improving customer satisfaction. Simply overpromising or underpromising is undesirable because of the negative impacts on short-/long-term sales. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to develop a data-driven framework to predict the distribution of order delivery time and set promised delivery time to customers in a cost-effective way. Methodology: We apply and extend tree-based models to generate distributional forecasts by exploiting the complicated relationship between delivery time and relevant operational predictors. To account for the cost-sensitive decision-making problem structure, we develop a new split rule for quantile regression forests that incorporates an asymmetric loss function in split point selection. We further propose a cost-sensitive decision rule to decide the promised delivery day from the predicted distribution. Results: Our decision rule is proven to be optimal given certain cost structures. Tested on a real-world data set shared from JD.com, our proposed machine learning–based models deliver superior forecasting performance. In addition, we demonstrate that our framework has the potential to provide better promised delivery time in terms of sales, cost, and accuracy as compared with the conventional promised time set by JD.com. Specifically, our simulation results indicate that the proposed delivery time promise policy can improve the sales volume by 6.1% over the current policy. Managerial implications: Through a more accurate estimation of the delivery time distribution, online retailers can strategically set the promised time to maximize customer satisfaction and boost sales. Our data-driven framework reveals the importance of modeling fulfillment operations in delivery time forecasting and integrating the decision-making problem structure with the forecasting model.

Furniture online consumer experience: A literature review

In recent years, people’s acceptance of online shopping has increased markedly with the gradual maturing of e-commerce. The furniture industry in China, along with many other countries, is paying increased attention to the online retail business. The furniture online consumption experience has attracted attention both in academic and industrial fields. The purpose of this paper is to provide a literature review of the furniture online consumption with an aim to extend the concept of consumer experience to the context of online furniture consumption. The paper offers three important contributions for both academics and practitioners. First, it analyzes the main influencing factors of the consumer experience concerning wood furniture online consumption in China. And secondly, it proposes a conceptual framework of furniture online consumer experience (FOCE), which divides online consumption experience into three dimensions: perceived risk experience, emotional experience, and new technology interactive experience. Finally, from a managerial perspective, the authors put forward constructive strategies in terms of furniture online sales. The findings of this study afford practical implications for the improvement of the online shopping experience of consumers for furniture companies.

Studija o uticaju kvaliteta onlajn usluga na zadovoljstvo kupaca u e-trgovini na malo

This paper checks the effect of service quality in the online retail business on customer satisfaction along with the association of the demographic variables through the opinion from the respondents particularly 524 college students in India selected through purposive sampling method. The goodness of model fit was found using Structural equation Modelling (SEM) of AMOS and the relationship between e-service quality and customer satisfaction was analyzed through Inter - correlation and Regression analysis. The results show that e-service quality factors have a positive impact and also highlighted as a significant predictor for customer satisfaction. The study also revealed that service recovery is acting as a mediating factor between service failure and customer satisfaction. The output of this study will support the online retailers to formulate their strategies in view to provide very good and excellent services to their customers.

Repurchase intention behavior in B2C E-commerce

The intention to buy back is one of the objectives of the business strategy. This study aims to analyze the effect of mediating customer satisfaction on e-service and repurchase intention. This analytical study was conducted on e-commerce that is widely used by Indonesia, namely Shopee.co.id. The rapid growth of e-commerce, both C2C and B2B, has made online retailers compete in the online retail business. The intention to buy back is no longer solely due to the quality of service like an offline business. The purpose of this study is to analyze the role of mediating customer satisfaction from the quality of E-Commerce on repurchase intention in E-Commerce that has implemented a combination of C2B and B2B. Quantitative methods with structural equation analysis (SEM) and path analysis were used to analyze data using LISREL. The questionnaire is distributed to respondents used as samples taken from the population for this research. The researched population is user of Shopee.co.id in Indonesia, whereas samples of the population are randomly taken. The samples of this research are 279 respondents. The results of this study found that there is no significant direct effect of electronic service quality on repurchases intentions, but when customer satisfaction acts as a mediating variable, it shows that electronic service quality affects repurchase intention significantly through customer satisfaction. This study will help online retailers to find out what factors influence customers to make repeat purchases.

Survey Evidence on User Multi-Homing in Online Retail Businesses

Survey Evidence on User Multi-Homing in Online Retail Businesses

A Survey on Hybrid Recommendation Systems

As India is moving fast towards digital economy, E-commerce industry has been on rise. Many platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart provide their customers with a shopping experience better than actual physical stores. Several E-commerce websites use different methods to improve the customer engagement and revenue. One such technique is the use of personalized recommendation systems which uses customer’s data like interests, purchase history, ratings to suggest new products which they may like. Recommendation systems are used by E-commerce websites to suggest new products to their users. The products can be suggested based on the top merchants on the website, based on the interests of the user or based the past purchase pattern of the customer. Recommender systems are machine learning based systems that help users discover new products. Due to the recent pandemic situation of 2020 and 2021, many of the local retail stores have been trying to shift their business to online platforms such as dedicated websites or social media. The proposed methodology based on Machine Learning aims to enable local online retail business owners to enhance their customer engagement and revenue by providing users with personalized recommendations using past data using methods such as Collaborative Filtering and Content-Based Filtering.

COVID-19 Pandemic and the Rising Gig Economy: An Emerging Perspective

The Gig economy refers to short term jobs, contract or freelance work and flexi timing jobs as opposed to traditional full-time labor, which has witnessed a rapid growth in the last decade across the globe. Digital platforms have largely developed a free market system where independent workers connect with the buyers of the services. The Platform or Gig economy has grown at a much faster pace than ever before from the onset of COVID-19 pandemic. Since the COVID-19 lockdown, the labor market has been affected in a drastic way and a trend towards short-term and temporary jobs has become commonplace. The Economic Survey, 2020-21 highlights the growing importance of Gig economy in India amid the pandemic-induced lockdown which has led to an immense growth in the online retail business. The employers began layoffs and instead engaged freelancers or flexi staff to bring down their overhead costs. Many studies have been conducted now on assessing the impact of the ongoing pandemic on the economy and stock markets, however, very few studies focus on the influence the pandemic had on the Gig economy. The present study attempts to fill this gap by evaluating the impact of COVID-19 on the Gig economy by assessing whether the increase in new COVID-19 cases lead to an increase in the number of gig workers in the Indian economy, or in other words, exerts a significant impact on the Indian gig economy or not.

Impacts of Online Retail Business on the Built Environment in the Pandemic Context

The growth of online retail is considerably fast, prompted by the development of information technology and the internet in society. During the pandemic, people are often prohibited by law from commencing activities outside of their homes to prevent virus spreading. This situation made accessing e-commerce for online shopping became a norm. Last year, research presented approximately twenty million visitors increase in Indonesian online retail platforms during the first half of 2020, which was also the earlier phase of the pandemic in Indonesia. The highest-selling products during this period fell in the retail category, including fashion, hobby, and medical drugs and supplies. The two pieces of information indicate that the online retail business was booming because of the pandemic. From architectural perspective, discussions regarding online retail business at its early growth were unfavourable as this business reduces the need for physical commercial buildings or stores. Later, architectural research stated that the business is beneficial as it birthed a new industrial facility known as a fulfilment centre. The booming business and the current favourable impression of online retail became the catalyst of this paper; it provided a short architectural review on the business in the pandemic context and what it may bring for architectural research in the future. This research applies a qualitative approach developed through a structured literature review on the online commercial market during the pandemic, online retail business over time, and related real estate development. The result is a diagram of how the pandemic, technology and the internet, and architecture are correlated and several topic recommendations for future studies.

E-business Through Social Media: An Instagram Page Attribute-Conversion Model in Context of Fashion Apparel Industry

Instagram is a highly favoured platform for visual businesses, particularly fashion apparel industry. There are increasing number of fashion apparel businesses that are growing without any physical presence, solely on the basis of their online platforms. To explore the role of Instagram in consumer engagement for this sector, this article aims to empirically test an Instagram business page attribute-conversion model to examine how attributes of a business Instagram page can influence the purchase decision of a consumer, and subsequently result in conversion. First, based on focus group interviews, four Instagram page attributes relevant for an online fashion apparel business were identified. These were instant popularity gauge, influencer appeal, visual aesthetic and an interactive forum. The final model was tested among 327 consumers using structural equation modelling (SEM). Further, moderating role of gender was investigated. Results show that having a visually aesthetic and an interactive forum with active participation (followers/comments/likes/views) and collaboration with trusted brands/admired social media influencers should form an important component of Instagram sales conversion strategy for online retail businesses.

SUSTAINABILITY AND GROWTH OF SMALL-SCALE ONLINE RETAIL BUSINESS OWNERS FROM SANTIAGO CITY

The Covid-19 Pandemic hampered the growth and sustainability of small-scale online businesses. Companies were forced to devise strategies that would allow them to survive the economic downturn. The complex issue of small business growth necessitates further investigation. This study looked into the sustainability and growth of small-scale online retail businesses. This study used a qualitative research, particularly, phenomenology conducted at Santiago City, Philippines. The participants were twelve (12) purposively selected small-scale online retail business owners. The research study involved face-to-face, semi-structured interviews. The open-ended nature of the questions allowed the participants to express their personal experiences. The themes which arose from the experiences and factors associated with the sustainability and growth of small-scale online business owners are linked with the following themes: establishing the business name, knowing whom to do the business with, resorting to online business, decision-making is well-planned, the going still gets tough, uncertainties in financial management, poor access to finance and customer relationship related themes. The themes which depict the challenges and coping mechanisms of the entrepreneurs are also presented. The entrepreneurs employed strategies aligned with contingency management and they relied to their skills and knowledge in running their business in order to attain sustainability and allow the firm to grow. The retail business owners have gone through financial difficulties such as cash flow shortfall, scarce fund and unforeseen reparation, more so challenged by cut-throat competition. And in order to cope, the entrepreneurs enforced the entity’s unique selling proposition, financial management and cultivated a steadfast mindset.