Retail Power Research Articles

Small Retail Enterprises (SREs) and Their Role in Building Neighborhood Community in India

In India, small retailers dominated the retail industry. In the past few decades, small retailers have been straggling for market share as there is seen a huge development in customer needs and change in life style of consumer drastically. At present when foreign investors are increasing day by day in modern retailing, local small retailers need to be more attentive in responding to present day competition and market changes if they want to maintain their existence in this change. Many researchers say that small retailers are declining in India as powerful retail giants (supermarkets, hypermarkets, etc) taking over the marketplace. But the report published by A T Kearney demonstrates that 92% of the retail industry is still controlled by small family-run business while only 8% of the market is captured by big retailers (Kearney 2012). This paper therefore, aims to discuss the small retailers and their role in building neighborhood community in India.

Big retail and sustainable coffee: A new development studies research agenda

Over the past five years, global retail chains such as Walmart, McDonald’s and Starbucks have accelerated their efforts to source and sell coffee ‘sustainably’. Whereas ethical and environmental concerns were the intended drivers of fair trade and organic coffee uptake among the big coffee roasters, now multinational retailers are strategically embracing ‘sustainable coffee’ to build brand reputation and consumer trust as well as enhance quality and profitability. This new trend among mass retailers is transforming the social and environmental governance of coffee production and revealing several critical emerging areas of development studies research regarding the impact of big retail power.

The Use of Social Bases of Power in Retail Sales

AbstractSocial power theory has been used to explain how a sales manager may influence sales personnel in an industrial sales setting. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between retail sales managers' power bases and retail salespeople's job satisfaction, role conflict, role ambiguity, work motivation, organizational commitment, and job performance. Results of the study suggest that noncoercive sources of power have greater influence on these variables than does coercive power.

Probabilistic decision model of wind power investment and influence of green power market

This paper presents results from a model of a representative wind power investor's decision making process using a Monte Carlo simulation of a project financial analysis. Data, in the form of probability distribution functions (PDFs) for key input variables were collected from interviews with investors and other professionals active in the U.S. wind power industry using a formal expert elicitation protocol. This study presents the first quantitative estimates of the effect of the U.S. voluntary Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) market on renewable energy generation. The results indicate that the investment decisions of wind power project developers in the United States are unlikely to have been altered by the voluntary REC market. The problem with the current voluntary REC market is that it does not offer developers a reliable risk-adjusted revenue stream. Consequently, the claims by U.S. green power retailers and promoters that voluntary market RECs result in additional wind power projects lack credibility. Even dramatic increases in voluntary market REC prices, in the absence of long-term contracts, were found to have only a small effect on investor behavior.

Food Retailers as Drivers for Food Safety Standards

This paper discusses the increased role of retailers in global food safety regulation and its consequences for food producers. The first section deals with the development of retail-driven private food safety regulation from the 1990s onwards. The dominant transnational retail-driven standards are introduced with particular attention to the dissemination outside Europe and to the power of retailers in the governance structure of the standards. The next section discusses the reasons for retailers to engage in food safety standards. Subsequently, section 3 deals with the reasons for food producers to comply with food safety standards.

Impacts of Power Structure on Supply Chains with Uncertain Demand

In this study, we use a game‐theory‐based framework to model power in a supply chain with random and price‐dependent demand and examine how power structure and demand models (expected demand and demand shock) affect supply chain members' performance. We demonstrate that whether a firm benefits from its power depends on the expected demand model but not on demand shock model. A firm benefits from its power only for linear but not for constant elasticity expected demand. The impact of power structure on supply chain efficiency depends on the models of both expected demand and demand shock. With additive shock, supply chain efficiency is highest (lowest) when neither firm dominates for linear (constant elasticity) expected demand. With multiplicative shock, the supply chain efficiency is highest with a power retailer (manufacturer) for linear (constant elasticity) expected demand. The manufacturer always benefits from a reduction in demand uncertainty. However, the retailer loses (benefits) from demand uncertainty reduction for linear (constant elasticity) expected demand. With a power retailer, the retail price is always on the higher end for linear expected demand, and the customer service level is the lowest for constant elasticity expected demand. Consequently, consumers do not necessarily benefit from a power retailer.

Improvement of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act Standard for Determining Buyer Power of Large Scale Retailers

Improvement of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act Standard for Determining Buyer Power of Large Scale Retailers

Autonomous Agents in Future Energy Markets: The 2012 Power Trading Agent Competition

Sustainable energy systems of the future will need more than efficient, clean, and low-cost energy sources. They will also need efficient price signals that motivate sustainable energy consumption behaviors and a tight real-time alignment of energy demand with supply from renewable and traditional sources. The Power Trading Agent Competition (Power TAC) is a rich, competitive, open-source simulation platform for future retail power markets built on real-world data and state-of-the-art customer models. Its purpose is to help researchers understand the dynamics of customer and retailer decision-making as well as the robustness of proposed market designs. Power TAC invites researchers to develop autonomous electricity broker agents and to pit them against best-in-class strategies in global competitions, the first of which will be held at AAAI 2013. Power TAC competitions provide compelling, actionable information for policy makers and industry leaders. We describe the competition scenario, demonstrate the realism of the Power TAC platform, and analyze key characteristics of successful brokers in one of our 2012 pilot competitions between seven research groups from five different countries.

Power TAC: A competitive economic simulation of the smart grid

Sustainable energy systems of the future will need more than efficient, clean, low-cost, renewable energy sources; they will also need efficient price signals that motivate sustainable energy consumption as well as a better real-time alignment of energy demand and supply. The Power Trading Agent Competition (Power TAC) is a rich competitive simulation of future retail power markets. This simulation will help us to understand the dynamics of customer and retailer decision-making and the robustness of market designs, by stimulating researchers to develop broker agents and benchmark them against each other. This will provide compelling, actionable information for policymakers and industry leaders. We describe the competition scenario in detail, and we demonstrate behaviors that arise from the interaction of customer and broker models.

Residential solar power heads toward grid parity [News

PHOTOVOLTAICS ARE STILL, ON AVERAGE, A PRICEY, subsidy-dependent source of electricity. However, rooftop panels are beginning to beat the grid in a number of jurisdictions with high retail power rates—and their ranks are projected to swell over this decade. A growing number of economists say that rapidly shrinking costs have turned distributed solar generation into a disruptive technology that's set for runaway growth. In fact, they say, it could ultimately upend the power distribution market.

Does retailer power lead to exclusion?

This article examines whether retailer bargaining power and upfront slotting allowances prevent small manufacturers (who have no bargaining power) from obtaining adequate distribution. In contrast to the findings of Marx and Shaffer (2007), who show that all equilibria involve limited distribution (i.e., exclusion of a retailer), we show that there is always an equilibrium in which full distribution is obtained, provided that full distribution is the industry profit‐maximizing outcome. The key feature leading to this differing result is that we do not restrict each retailer to offering the manufacturer a single tariff.

Cooperative Advertising in a Supply Chain with Horizontal Competition

Cooperative advertising programs are usually provided by manufacturers to stimulate retailers investing more in local advertising to increase the sales of their products or services. While previous literature on cooperative advertising mainly focuses on a “single-manufacturer single-retailer” framework, the decision-making framework with “multiple-manufacturer single-retailer” becomes more realistic because of the increasing power of retailers as well as the increased competition among the manufacturers. In view of this, in this paper we investigate the cooperative advertising program in a “two-manufacturer single-retailer” supply chain in three different scenarios; that is, (i) each channel member makes decisions independently; (ii) the retailer is vertically integrated with one manufacturer; (iii) two manufacturers are horizontally integrated. Utilizing differential game theory, the open-loop equilibrium-advertising strategies of each channel member are obtained and compared. Also, we investigate the effects of competitive intensity on the firm’s profit in three different scenarios by using the numerical analysis.

Study on users' consciousness of safety and usability of pedestrian crossing in a retail power center parking lot

Study on users' consciousness of safety and usability of pedestrian crossing in a retail power center parking lot

독립 브랜드를 가진 제조업체의 유통업체 브랜드(Private Brand) 공급 전략

With the enormous growth and various applications of private brands, national brand manufacturers are confronted with a dilemmatic situation. That is, paradoxically, some manufacturers have come to produce private brands of retailers which are potential competitors to their own brands. This study reveals why manufacturers with their own brands let themselves do the consignment production of retailers' private brands although those private brands may become strong competitors of their own brands and then investigates the condition in which manufacturers may benefit from such consignment production. Through an analysis of a game theoretical model assuming a monopoly market, the present study presents the theoretical backgrounds and provides new insights about consignment production of manufacturer with its own brand for retailer's private brand. First, such consignment production can play a role in mitigating the loss in the consignee manufacturer's own brand sales caused by the private brand in the competitive environment. Second, the effectiveness of such role is affected by the quality of the private brand produced under consignment. In other word, only if the consignee manufacturer keeps the quality of the private brand low, the manufacturer can maintain the benefit from its own brand. In addition, a consigner retailer needs to consider the final objective of launching its private brand, when it chooses its consignee manufacturer of the brand. Finally, a manufacturer with its own brand may consider consignment production as not merely an unavoidable option compelled by a retailer's power but a reasonable strategic choice to reduce the risk from competition.

Local Content Requirements and the Renewable Energy Industry - A Good Match?

This paper offers an initial assessment of the use of local content requirements (LCR) in renewable energy policy. It observes that in spite of free trade concerns, many countries with different levels of economic development attach LCR to their support schemes and procurement tenders. The legality and potential effectiveness of LCR are a pressing issue. Because of the financial crisis, public financing for low carbon policies and investments is more limited, especially in austerity-driven jurisdictions. At the same time, such policies and investments are needed to limit and counter climate change. The importance of analyzing opportunity costs, performing rigourous scientific research and discussing the use of LCR is thus self-evident.This paper finds that local content requirements for renewable energy are used frequently, either as a precondition to the receipt of financial support or as part of eligibility requirements in public tenders. They are often attached to mostly expensive public financial support programs to gain some local benefits from increased renewable energy deployment. Most countries using them base their policy choices on political motivations, rather than on economic and empirical analyses, which remain largely absent in the case of LCR. However, it is found that under certain conditions content requirements may be able to facilitate the development of a global innovator that is able to compete on the international market and push down technology costs. These conditions are many, country- and technology-specific and complex. While it is found that LCR will cause short-term costs to the industry and will likely inflate retail power prices alike, a medium-term benefit of increasing competition and innovation on the international market may offset those costs. It is of great importance to note that this is a theoretical possibility. To date, these potential positive spill-over effects have not been demonstrated.On the legal side, it is concluded that LCR for renewable energy are generally prohibited under WTO law. While financial support schemes with LCR attached will likely be ruled illegal, public procurement tenders are hardly disciplined by WTO law and may be permissible. From the scarse empirical literature on local content requirements, it is found that there are a number of initial basic conditions that determine the feasibility of creating domestic industries and, perhaps, subsequently innovators. In addition to a stable and sizeable market, the financial support (to which LCR are often linked) for the renewable energy sector needs to be sufficiently large not to scare off potential investors. The local content rate can also not be too restrictive, and needs to be coupled to learning benefits. Certain knowledge of the current technology increases effectiveness. Finally, when technologies are still in their infancy, the potential of LCR to create global competitors that reduce costs by learning-by-doing is higher. Many countries using LCR, however, do not explicitly target the creation of global innovators. The given basic conditions are broad and necessary, though not necessarily sufficient in the creation of innovative capacity. This paper analyzes the wind LCR in China, and gives descriptive analyses for LCR in Ontario, Quebec, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Croatia, the US, India, Brazil, South Africa and Turkey.

Consumer Purchasing Behavior Towards Fresh Fruits and Vegetables: A Literature Review

Customers increasingly expect higher quality and service and some customization. In response entrepreneurial retailers are building entertainment into stores with coffee bars, demonstrations and performances. They are marketing an ‘experience’ rather than a product assortment. Subsequently, store based small retailers are succumbing to the growing power of giant retailers (Kotler, 2002). The large retail outlets or mall phenomenon is changing the way the urban consumer shop. While exhibiting gradual acceptance of the organized retail stores and have significantly increased their spending at the malls.

Influence Strategies and Channel Member Satisfaction in Cameroon

Researchers have called for increased understanding of channel member satisfaction as a bidimensional construct comprising economic and social elements. In addition to responding to this call, the view that threats and punishments are natural necessities in the African context by reason of cultural preponderances is examined. The study was conducted among brewers and their retailers. The authors found that the brewers' use of threats and indirect influence strategies respectively decreases and increases both economic and social satisfaction of their less powerful retailers, whereas the use of promises contributes to retailers' economic satisfaction. Contrary to theory, however, the use of promises does not undermine channel members' autonomy and intrinsic motivation as will be expected in some Western countries.

Boundless Competition: Subcontracting and the London Economy in the Late Nineteenth Century

Why did subcontracting remain, well until the end of the nineteenth century, a viable way to organize metropolitan manufacturing? This article addresses historically and theoretically the reasons for the permanence of subcontracting as a viable alternative to centralized forms of production in London. It also questions the literature that equates the decline of subcontracting with the rise of sweating and argues for a reinterpretation of traditional explanations that saw the “sweater” as a central figure in the “degeneration” of the metropolitan productive system. The article concludes by proposing a reinterpretation of the “decline of subcontracting” and argues that the logic of flexibility of subcontracting was challenged by the increasing power of London wholesalers and retailers and the demands of fin-de-siècle mass consumption.

Boundless Competition: Subcontracting and the London Economy in the Late Nineteenth Century

Why did subcontracting remain, well until the end of the nineteenth century, a viable way to organize metropolitan manufacturing? This article addresses historically and theoretically the reasons for the permanence of subcontracting as a viable alternative to centralized forms of production in London. It also questions the literature that equates the decline of subcontracting with the rise of sweating and argues for a reinterpretation of traditional explanations that saw the “sweater” as a central figure in the “degeneration” of the metropolitan productive system. The article concludes by proposing a reinterpretation of the “decline of subcontracting” and argues that the logic of flexibility of subcontracting was challenged by the increasing power of London wholesalers and retailers and the demands offin-de-sièclemass consumption.

Retail beamed power using millimeter waves

Retail delivery of electric power through millimeter waves is relevant in developing areas where the market for communication devices outpaces the power grid infrastructure. It is also a critical component of an evolutionary path towards terrestrial and space-based renewable power generation. Narrow-band power can be delivered as focused beams to receivers near end-users, from central power plants, rural distribution points, UAVs, tethered aerostats, stratospheric airship platforms, or space satellites. The article surveys the available knowledge base on millimeter wave beamed power delivery. It then considers design requirements for a retail beamed power architecture, in the context of rural India where power delivery is lagging behind the demand growth for connectivity. A survey of technology developments relevant to millimeter wave beaming is conducted, and indicates that massive, mass-produced solid-state arrays capable of achieving good efficiency and cost effectiveness are possible in the near term to enable such retail power beaming architectures.