Retail Centers Research Articles

Archetypes of Footfall Context: Quantifying Temporal Variations in Retail Footfall in relation to Micro-Location Characteristics

The UK retail sector is constantly changing and evolving. The increasing share of online sales and the development of out-of-town retail provision, in conjunction with the 2008–09 economic crisis, have disproportionately impacted high streets and physical retail negatively. Understanding and adapting to these changes is fundamental to the vitality, sustainability and prosperity of businesses, communities and the economy. However, there is a need for better information to support attempts to revitalise UK high streets and retail centres, and advances in sensor technology have made this possible. Footfall provides a commonly used heuristic of retail centre vitality and can be increasingly estimated in automated ways through sensing technology. However, footfall counts are influenced by a range of externalities such as aspects of retail centre function, morphology, connectivity and attractiveness. The key contribution of this paper is to demonstrate how footfall patterns are expressed within the varying context of different retail centre architypes providing both a useful tool for benchmarking and planning; but also making a theoretical contribution to the understanding of retail mobilities. This paper integrates a range of contextual data to develop a classification of footfall sensor locations; producing three representations of sensor micro-locations across Great Britain: chain and comparison retail micro-locations, business and independent micro-locations and value-orientated convenience retail micro-locations. These three groups display distinct daily and weekly footfall magnitudes and distributions, which are attributed to micro-locational differences in their morphology, connectivity and function.

Closed-Loop Supply Chain Design and Pricing in Competitive Conditions by Considering the Variable Value of Return Products Using the Whale Optimization Algorithm

In today’s competitive environment, organizations, in addition to trying to improve their production conditions, have a special focus on their supply chain components. Cooperation between supply chain members always reduces unforeseen costs and speeds up the response to customer demand. In the new situation, according to the category of return products and their reprocessing, supply chains have found a closed-loop structure. In this research, the aim was to design a closed-loop supply chain in competitive conditions. For this purpose, the key decisions of this chain included locating retail centers, adjusting the inventory of chain members, and selling prices of final products, optimally determined. For this purpose, a nonlinear integer mathematical model is presented. One of the most important innovations of this research was considering the variable value for return products. Then, in order to solve the proposed model, a whale optimization algorithm was developed. Numerical results from the sample examples showed that the whale algorithm had a very good performance in terms of response quality and speed-of-action in finding the optimal solution to this problem.

Driving Factors Behind the Social Role of Retail Centers on Recreational Activities

Retail centers can be considered as places for interactional and recreational activities and such social roles of retail centers contribute to the popularity of the retail centers. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to identify effective factors encouraging customers to engage with interactional activities and measure how these factors affect customer behavior. Accordingly, two hypotheses were raised illustrating that the travel time (i.e., the time it takes for a customer to reach the retail center) and the variety of shops (in a retail center) increase the percentage of people who spend their leisure time and recreational activities retail centers. Two case studies were conducted in two analogous retail centers, one in Tehran, Iran, and the other in Madrid, Spain. According to the results, there is an interaction between the travel time and the motivation for the presence of people in the retail center. Furthermore, the results revealed that half of both retail center goers who spend more than 10 minutes to reach the retail centers prefer to do leisure activities and browsing than shopping. In other words, the longer it takes a person to get to the center, the more likely he/she is to spend more time in the mall and do more leisure activities. It is also found that there is a significant relationship between the variety of shops in a retail center and the motivation of customers attending a retail center that encourages people to spend their leisure time in retail centers.

Driving factors behind the social role of retail centers on recreational activities

Retail centers can be considered as places for interactional and recreational activities and such social roles of retail centers contribute to the popularity of the retail centers. Therefore, the m...

The effectiveness of the non-free plastic bag policy to reduce plastic waste in the community of Padang

The waste generation of Padang City at the Final Processing Site (TPA) is 495.50 tons/day, and the amount of unmanaged waste is 62.42 tons/day, of which 40% is plastic waste. Efforts to reduce the use of plastic bags have begun in Padang, referring to Perwaliko number 36 of 2018. Shopping centers and modern stores must use plastic shopping bags that meet SNI no later than December 31, 2020, especially in various retail and contemporary shopping centers. This study aimed to analyze the relationship between the effectiveness of plastic use policies and the decrease in the use of plastic bags in people who shop at modern retailers in Padang City. This type of research is quantitative with a cross-sectional design. The number of samples is 116 respondents who shop at modern shopping centers, namely Matahari Dept. Store, Food Mart Padang, Ramayana Padang and SPAR Padang. Data analysis used univariate and bivariate analysis. The results showed that 46.6% of respondents stated that the plastic bag policy was not adequate, and 46.6% of respondents stated that there was no reduction in plastic bags. There is a significant relationship between the effectiveness of the plastic bag policy and the decrease in the use of plastic bags in the people of Padang City (p=0,029). With this paid plastic bag policy, government, retailers, and the public will be more concerned with the environment.

HUELLA DE CARBONO DE LA VENTA DEL FRUTO Y LA PRODUCCIÓN DE BEBIDAS Y HELADOS DE AGUAJE (Mauritia flexuosa L.f.) EN EL DEPARTAMENTO DE UCAYALI, PERÚ

Se estimó la huella de carbono de la venta del fruto, la producción de bebidas y helados de aguaje. El estudio se realizó en la ciudad de Pucallpa, distrito de Callería, donde se venden los productos del aguaje y en el caserío Túpac Amaru, distrito de Manantay donde se extraen los frutos del aguaje, ambos lugares ubicados en la provincia de Coronel Portillo, departamento de Ucayali. Se estudió la huella de carbono de todas las fases de la comercialización de los frutos, así como de la producción de bebidas y helados de aguaje, para lo cual se colectó información sobre las emisiones de CO2, a través de encuestas realizadas a 46 productores. Se estimó que la huella de carbono de la venta del fruto de aguaje fue de 0,07031 KgCO2eq por cada fruto obtenido talando la palmera y puesto en los centros de venta minoristas de la ciudad de Pucallpa. Las emisiones fueron menores cuando el fruto fue aprovechado sin talar la palmera, reduciendo la huella de carbono en un 83,53 %, es decir, emitiendo solo 0,001158 KgCO2eq por fruto de aguaje. Las huellas de carbono de un vaso de bebida de aguaje de 250 ml y del helado de aguaje de 75 ml fueron mayores, obteniéndose valores de 0,89317 y 0,0887 KgCO2eq, respectivamente. Por lo tanto, existe la necesidad de impulsar el aprovechamiento sostenible del aguaje utilizando tecnología que permitan subir las palmeras sin tener que talarla. Dicha tecnología deberá ser aceptada por los pobladores que realizan la extracción y favorecida por los consumidores finales.

Reframing the intra-urban retail hierarchy

Over recent decades there has been the development of a significant number of ‘out of town’ retail centres in Western countries. This paper reviews the theoretical background to retail hierarchies before analysing the changing UK retail context and long term forces shaping shopping centres. It reframes the intra-urban hierarchy concept under the banner of a ‘convenience retail model’. This paper then examines the process of change in Edinburgh from the 1980s and the interface with planning. New out of town development was opportunity driven by the availability of vacant brownfield sites. Despite restrictive planning policy from the early 1990s out of town retailing continued to grow. The process was piecemeal and the physical nature of these centres was transformed over time. The city centre is found not to be a single entity and the largest outer centre is almost comparable in terms of size of fashion floorspace with individual central segments. The major distinction between in and out of town is now the scale of provision of restaurants and cafes. The paper confirms the dilution of the retail hierarchy and finds that planning policies need to embrace such urban change rather than seek to maintain the status quo.

COVID-19 and Supply Chain Disruption: Evidence from Food Markets in India†.

This paper looks at the disruption in food supply chains due to COVID‐19 induced economic shutdown in India. We use a novel dataset from one of the largest online grocery retailers to look at the impact on product stockouts and prices. We find that product availability falls by 10% for vegetables, fruits, and edible oils, but there is a minimal impact on their prices. On the farm‐gate side, it is matched by a 20% fall in quantity arrivals of vegetables and fruits. We then show that supply chain disruption is the main driver behind this fall. We compute the distance to production zones from our retail centers and find that the fall in product availability and quantity arrivals is larger for items that are cultivated or manufactured farther from the final point of sale. Our results show that long‐distance food supply chains have been hit the hardest during the current pandemic with welfare consequences for urban consumers and farmers.

Spatial dynamics of long-term urban retail decline in three transatlantic cities

This paper studies the effects of the centrality, connectivity and agglomeration of retail establishments on their long-term viability in three cities in the United States, United Kingdom and The Netherlands. As retail is declining in all three markets, there is a dearth of knowledge on the spatial patterns of this decline. This obstructs the substantiation of development decisions and public policy on urban retail retention and growth. Without knowing where stores are most at risk of closing, where can we decide to invest or divest? This paper uses a self-built dataset of store locations and store closures over the span of more than a century in the urban cores of Detroit, Michigan; Birmingham, England; and The Hague, The Netherlands. While taking different paths, all three cities have experienced significant retail decline over the past century. The probability of store closure over time is compared to the metric distance of stores to the retail center of gravity (centrality), store location along well-used streets as measured by their Choice value (connectivity), and the number of surrounding stores (agglomeration). These three comparisons are statistically analyzed using simple line regression, panel regression, and spatial autoregressive probit models. Across these models, store closure is most significantly affected by agglomeration, then by centrality, followed by connectivity. The significance of all three measures is strongest in The Hague, followed by Birmingham and Detroit – two cities that experienced large-scale urban renewal and socio-economic decline.

Presence of pathogens in raw chicken meat in retail centers, Huánuco-Peru

Presence of pathogens in raw chicken meat in retail centers, Huánuco-Peru

Assessing product availability in omnichannel retail networks in the presence of on-demand inventory transshipment and product substitution

Retail networks offering high-value products with a broad mix of models, such as cars, employ on-demand inventory transshipments to avoid lost sales due to incomplete product availability. Advances in information technology, digitalization, and new emerging concepts in logistics systems such as the physical internet are facilitating the exploitation of fast and economical on-demand inventory transshipments through shared supply resources, resulting in the broader employment of on-demand transshipments in retailing and the establishment of interconnected retail networks. In such environments, the inventory profile does not alone reflect the readiness of a retail center to satisfy a customer; rather, network availability must be considered in addition to in-stock products to fully account for the potential demand that a retailer can satisfy. We propose a new model to estimate product availability in a closed-form expression under uncertain demand and in the presence of customer substitution and inventory transshipment for an omnichannel retail network consisting of retailers distributing high-value substitutable products. Our model estimates product availability for all available shopping channels considering both in-stock and network availability while accounting for the trade-off between transshipment costs and the additional customer satisfaction gained through exploring more-distant alternatives. The results of implementing the model on a pilot project for a case of recreational vehicles show that monitoring and improving product availability by the proposed model can achieve a significant reduction in supply chain-induced lost sales.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: COVID-19 and Supply Chain Disruption

This paper looks at the disruption in food supply chains due to COVID-19 induced economic shutdown in India. We use a novel dataset from one of the largest online grocery retailers to look at the impact on product stock-outs and prices. We find that product availability falls by 10 percent for vegetables, fruits, and edible oils, while there is a minimal impact on their prices. On the farm-gate side, it is matched by a 20 percent fall in quantity arrivals of vegetables and fruits. We then show that supply chain disruption is the main driver behind this fall. We compute the distance to production zones from our retail centers and find that the fall in product availability and quantity arrivals is larger for items that are cultivated or manufactured farther from the retail centers. Our results show that long-distance food supply chains have been hit the hardest during the current pandemic with welfare consequences for urban consumers and farmers.

Agile optimization of a two‐echelon vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery

AbstractIn this paper, we consider a vehicle routing problem in which a fleet of homogeneous vehicles, initially located at a depot, has to satisfy customers' demands in a two‐echelon network: first, the vehicles have to visit intermediate nodes (e.g., a retail center or a consolidation center), where they deliver raw materials or bulk products and collect a number of processed items requested by the customers in their route; then, the vehicles proceed to complete their assigned routes, thus delivering the processed items to the final customers before returning to the depot. During this stage, vehicles might visit other intermediate nodes for reloading new items. In some real‐life scenarios, this problem needs to be solved in just a few seconds or even milliseconds, which leads to the concept of “agile optimization.” This might be the case in some rescue operations using drones in humanitarian logistics, where every second can be decisive to save lives. In order to deal with this real‐time two‐echelon vehicle routing problem with pickup and delivery, an original constructive heuristic is proposed. This heuristic is able to provide a feasible and reasonably good solution in just a few milliseconds. The constructive heuristic is extended into a biased‐randomized algorithm using a skewed probability distribution to modify its greedy behavior. This way, parallel runs of the algorithm are able to generate even better results without violating the real‐time constraint. Results show that the proposed methodology generates competitive results in milliseconds, being able to outperform other heuristics from the literature.

Effectiveness of Retail Promotions in the Green Industry by Age Group: A Case Study

In the horticulture industry, age has frequently been used to divide and quantify gardeners (National Gardening Association, 2013). For instance, consumers over the age of 55 account for the majority of U.S. household lawn and garden retail sales and the number of gardeners in this group is increasing (National Gardening Association, 2013). Interestingly, young consumers are also expressing interest in gardening. In 2012, Millennials (born after 1980) spent 78% more on gardening purchases than in the previous 2 years. Surprisingly, men are the driving force in this age group (with a 125% increase) who spent approximately $441 per household (in 2012) with most of the expenditures being on food producing/edible plants (i.e. fruit trees, berries, vegetables and herbs). The local and ‘grow your own food’ movements are likely the main drivers of increased interest in edible and food producing plants (National Gardening Association, 2013). To date, research addressing retail promotions in the green industry by age segments has not been adequately addressed. 
 Once differences and similarities by age group are identified, promotions can be designed to attract those groups. Target marketing is a promotional strategy where consumers are segmented into homogenous groups with common needs that respond similarly to marketing stimuli (Belch & Belch, 2009). Advantages of target marketing include streamlining promotional efforts, better market penetration, improved promotion efficiency, and stronger brand recognition. Many consumer characteristics can be used to create segments with one of the primary factors being demographic characteristics (Belch & Belch, 2009). Specifically in the horticulture industry, young consumers have been of interest due to their increased spending power, low market penetration (in the horticulture industry), and potential to rejuvenate the industry (Rihn et al., 2011). For instance, in 2015 Millennial’s annual spending exceeded $600 billion and is projected to rise to $1.4 trillion in 2020 (Donnelly & Scaff, 2019). Consequently, identifying how different age groups respond to in-store marketing efforts could aid in capturing additional market share and ultimately improve green industry performance and profitability.
 In this report, results from a study investigating in-store signage and plant tag information are shared. Specifically, similarities and differences between younger and older consumers and their visual attention to point-of-sale (POS) information is explored. Results provide a deeper understanding of how end consumers use POS information while determining their purchases in the retail center. Overall, this EDIS publication is intended to aid green industry growers, marketing intermediaries, and retailers as they design their in-store marketing materials.

A Dynamic Programming-Based Heuristic for Markdown Pricing and Inventory Allocation of a Seasonal Product in a Retail Chain

The manager is responsible for the operations of a distribution center (DC) and multiple retail outlets selling a seasonal product. Initially, the DC keeps the inventory, which is allocated to the outlets in the season. There are inventory holding costs at the DC and the outlets; variable shipment cost for transferring inventory from the DC; fixed ordering cost and shortage cost at an outlet. Exact demand at each outlet is a decreasing function of price. To maximize the expected profit of the season, the manager needs to determine the markdown prices for retail outlets and quantity of inventory allocated to them. The problem can be modeled as a dynamic program (DP) which takes too heavy computational effort to solve. We develop a DP-based heuristic for solving the problem. The heuristic takes light computational effort and yet has good accuracy. Insights streamlining the markdown operations are deduced from the numerical results.

The regional structure of retail sector in the Northern Hungary Region

The retail sector plays a decisive role in the development of urban-rural relations. As it is not only a narrower segment of the population that participates in it and it is a good measure of the central role of cities on a market basis. Our study is part of a broader research project covering the North Hungarian region, where we investigate market access opportunities for local producers through short supply chains. As a basis for the primary research of a greater project we conducted secondary research based on the databases of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. In addition to the number of retail stores, we investigated the possible impacts of changes in population and incomes on demand for retail stores and centres in each city and their surrounding rural areas. In terms of the socio-economic sense, the region shows a less favourable picture than the national average, which also manifests itself in the lower number of retail units. However, in the region, significant differences can also be observed in the settlement hierarchy and spatial characteristics. There is some duality in the fact that the population per unit of trade is relatively high, but at the same time, the number of units in the examined chain stores is relatively smaller in the region.

Do Governments’ Decisions on Social Distancing Flatten out People’s Mobility during COVID-19 Pandemic?

Amid coronavirus (nCOVID-19) pandemic, the trending pieces of advice for ‘social distancing’ and ‘stay-at-home' have become two of the most pushed recommendations from the WHO and governments across countries. This paper presents some exploratory graphs and analyses to show the relationships among the governments' initiatives during coronavirus pandemic and people’s responses to keep them staying at home. Overall, governments’ decisions on social distancing, movement restrictions and lockdowns have negative associations with people’s mobility to retail and recreation centers, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, and workplaces. The same decisions have a positive association with people’s stay-at-home. However, social distancing decision alone does not sufficiently work to keep people staying at home. When a government decides on social distancing together with movement restriction orders or lockdowns, it works. For the analyses, this paper utilizes two sources of data: Google’s data (2020) on community mobility and ACAPS (Assessment Capacities Projects) data on governments’ measures (2020) to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.

Trends and Innovations in Value Chain Management of Tropical Fruits

India produced about 97.35 million tons of fruits during 2017-18, of which less than 1% fruits were exported. In India, less than 5% of the total fruits produced are sold by the organized supply chain management and E-commerce companies and 3% of the total produce gets processed, indicating that more than 90% of fruits follow the traditional route of supply chain involving farmers, auctioneers, agents/intermediaries, wholesalers, sub-wholesalers, retailers, cart vendors before they reach the consumers. Post-Harvest (PH) losses occur at each stage of the supply chain and are compounded with each operation. A study on PH loss estimation has shown maximum loss of 15.88% in guava among fruits while other studies have reported much higher PH lossesin fruits. Value of tropical fruits, both in monetary terms and quality reduces during harvesting, handling, transportation from the farmer’s field, packaging, storage, retail and even at the consumer’s level. Important interventions that reduce the PH losses and improve the supply chain management are establishment of pre-cooling facilities and short term storage facilities through evaporative cooling/refrigeration mechanisms at the farm gate, primary processing and packaging provision at the farm gate or nearby collection centres, transportation of fruits in refrigerated/evaporative cooled vans with the use of alternate energy sources and provision for low temperature and high humidity storage at the retail centres. Establishment of a Postharvest management system for sorting, washing, partial drying, edible coating, if required and grading at the collection centres will help in reducing the PH losses in the supply chain and help farmers get a better value for their produce. Formation of farmer clusters or Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs) provides farmers a better bargaining power because of higher volumes. Educating and bringing awareness among the farmers about the good agricultural practices (GAP), mechanization in field operations, availability of seeds for different seasons, eliminating the problem of seasonality are also important in production of quality output. Transportation of fruits, such as mango, banana and guava in vans/wagons operating through evaporative cooling/cooling mechanism using phase change material will help in improving the shelf life of such fruits. An integrated radio frequency identification (RFID) system along with the sensors for ethylene, temperature and RH monitoring is likely to help in easy tracking and traceability of the fresh produce. Establishment of primary and secondary processing facility at the farmer cluster/ FPO levels will help in transforming the farmers to primary processors.

Trends and Innovations in Value Chain Management of Tropical Fruits

India produced about 97.35 million tons of fruits during 2017-18, of which less than 1% fruits were exported. In India, less than 5% of the total fruits produced are sold by the organized supply chain management and E-commerce companies and 3% of the total produce gets processed, indicating that more than 90% of fruits follow the traditional route of supply chain involving farmers, auctioneers, agents/intermediaries, wholesalers, sub-wholesalers, retailers, cart vendors before they reach the consumers. Post-Harvest (PH) losses occur at each stage of the supply chain and are compounded with each operation. A study on PH loss estimation has shown maximum loss of 15.88% in guava among fruits while other studies have reported much higher PH lossesin fruits. Value of tropical fruits, both in monetary terms and quality reduces during harvesting, handling, transportation from the farmer’s field, packaging, storage, retail and even at the consumer’s level. Important interventions that reduce the PH losses and improve the supply chain management are establishment of pre-cooling facilities and short term storage facilities through evaporative cooling/refrigeration mechanisms at the farm gate, primary processing and packaging provision at the farm gate or nearby collection centres, transportation of fruits in refrigerated/evaporative cooled vans with the use of alternate energy sources and provision for low temperature and high humidity storage at the retail centres. Establishment of a Postharvest management system for sorting, washing, partial drying, edible coating, if required and grading at the collection centres will help in reducing the PH losses in the supply chain and help farmers get a better value for their produce. Formation of farmer clusters or Farmers Producer Organizations (FPOs) provides farmers a better bargaining power because of higher volumes. Educating and bringing awareness among the farmers about the good agricultural practices (GAP), mechanization in field operations, availability of seeds for different seasons, eliminating the problem of seasonality are also important in production of quality output. Transportation of fruits, such as mango, banana and guava in vans/wagons operating through evaporative cooling/cooling mechanism using phase change material will help in improving the shelf life of such fruits. An integrated radio frequency identification (RFID) system along with the sensors for ethylene, temperature and RH monitoring is likely to help in easy tracking and traceability of the fresh produce. Establishment of primary and secondary processing facility at the farmer cluster/ FPO levels will help in transforming the farmers to primary processors.

The role of place in city centre retailing

City centre offerings, including shopping, restaurants and cafes, and a lively atmosphere are vital place attributes, which together with several other elements create an attractive place. However, city centre retailing is facing serious competition from e-commerce and external shopping malls, and dying city centres appear to have become a worldwide epidemic in the last decade. To retain visitors in the city centre is a prioritized issue and a current topic, for both retail and place branding research. In the present study the role of different elements of city centre retailing in the promotion of a city as a retail destination is explored by analysing photos published on Instagram by a Town Centre Management initiative. The following research question is answered: What role can the place play in city centre retailing? The study is inter-disciplinary, showing how retail attributes and place elements can reinforce each other and together offer opportunities for unique customer experience in a city centre, for the benefit of both retailing and the city brand. Three dominant visual themes of the place’s role in the marketing of a city centre are identified: the place as a frame, the place as a living room, and the place as a stage.