Retail Firms Research Articles

The impact of electronic commerce on the Peruvian firms' revenue

Electronic commerce is a way of sale that has come to stay. It helps companies to overcome physical barriers, and in theory, it increases their sales. However, does electronic commerce have any impact on the firms' revenue? This research sought the answer by employing OLS and quantile regressions in a sample of 2164 Peruvian retail firms. The dataset was obtained through the INEI economic survey of 2019, which was the last one. For methodological purposes, electronic commerce was compared against the other sales channels employed by the studied firms. It was found that electronic commerce positively impacted the income in firms with more enormous revenues but was still low compared with traditional commerce forms.

Mechanism of Building a Sustainable Competitive Advantage of Japanese Retail Firms in Emerging Markets: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

Mechanism of Building a Sustainable Competitive Advantage of Japanese Retail Firms in Emerging Markets: A Dynamic Capabilities Perspective

Endeavour towards sustainability: an empirical study of an Indian electronics retail industry

This exploratory study seeks to examine the reverse supply chain as a source of sustainability in retail firms of India. The determinants of sustainability are discerned using data collected from 302 consumer electronics retailers. The findings reveal that at retailer's level, sustainability is embedded in planning for reverse collection process, monitoring the information, dealing with uncertainties, supply chain responsiveness for productivity and decision making at strategic level. The reverse supply chain strategies implemented by Indian electronic retailers is a distinctive contribution of the presented research. The retailers practice different approaches to achieve benefits of their eco-friendly strategies. But certain institutional and structural constraints limit their intent. Such concerns are highlighted and viable solutions are suggested for immediate industry practice.

Intellectual capital and financial performance: evidence from Chinese retail firms

Intellectual capital and financial performance: evidence from Chinese retail firms

Prolonging retailer-supplier relationship: a study of retail firms during COVID-19 pandemic

Prolonging retailer-supplier relationship: a study of retail firms during COVID-19 pandemic

CLOUD ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SYSTEM AND ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS OF ONLINE RETAILERS IN RIVERS STATE

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of Cloud ERP adoption on organizational effectiveness in the online retail sector within the context of a developing economy, such as Nigeria. The study was obliged by insufficient empirical substantiation from a developing economy's perspective. The study adopted a positivist, quantitative research design, with cross-sectional field survey data collection mode. The target population was 10 online retail companies in Rivers State and, data were composed from 30 management staff of the online retail firms studied. Data was analyzed by means of the simple regression analysis technique. The study finds that Cloud ERP positively and significantly influences goal accomplishment, and that Cloud ERP positively and significantly influences strategic constituencies’ satisfaction. The study therefore, concludes that Cloud ERP positively and significantly influence organizational effectiveness of online retailers in Rivers State, and recommends that, Online retailers should prioritize Cloud ERP adoption in order to attract and enhance goal accomplishment and strategic constituencies satisfaction and thus enhance organizational effectiveness.

An Analysis of Amazon Air's Network in the United States

Abstract Using data on 12 months of operations, Amazon Air's network is contrasted to the domestic networks of FedEx Express and UPS Airlines. Amazon Air has a lower network density than the other two airlines, and its geography is more strongly related to Amazon's distribution centers. Like UPS and FedEx, Amazon has placed its main hub at a location in the central United States: first Wilmington, Ohio and more recently Cincinnati. The acceleration of online retail trade since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic may encourage other digitally native or incumbent retail firms to develop their own air distribution networks. The criteria that distinguish Amazon Air's gateway airports are identified and then those criteria are applied to all public US airports to detect others that might be suitable for incorporation into a retail distribution air network.

The correlates of energy management practices and sales performance of small family food firms in Turkey

PurposeWhile pursuing energy management, firms simultaneously strive to boost sales as a path towards economic performance. Also, the literature suggests that family firms exhibit greater environmental commitment than their non-family counterparts. To examine these contentions, this review espouses contingency theory to interrogate the correlations of (1) energy consumption targets, (2) energy efficiency enhancing measures, (3) energy consumption monitoring and (4) the domestic sales performance of small family firms in Turkey's food sector.Design/methodology/approachData were sourced from the World Bank Enterprise Survey. A sample of 137 family firms in food production, processing and retail was analysed using non-linear structural equation modelling. Path coefficients were determined to estimate the extent to which energy management practices predict domestic sales.FindingsThe path analysis revealed that although energy consumption targets do not directly increase sales performance, they stimulate firms' energy efficiency enhancement measures and energy consumption monitoring to produce this effect by 21%.Research limitations/implicationsThe contingency lens espoused leaves room to capture further antecedents in small family food firms' technical, managerial, ownership, operational and architectural configuration that may also interact with or predict the propensity for energy management.Practical implicationsFor practitioners, the inherent findings demonstrate that there are firm-specific material benefits arising from adopting energy management practices. And, although small firms such as family food businesses may have low energy intensities, they can improve their sales performance by setting energy targets, installing energy efficiency enhancing measures and embarking on energy consumption monitoring.Social implicationsPublic stakeholders in Turkey such as the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, the General Directorate of Energy Affairs and affiliate institutions can reflect on these findings to develop a coherent national energy management policy for small firms. Such initiatives are especially relevant to Turkey and its ambitions to join the EU which requires member states to set up a national energy efficiency action plan.Originality/valueThis inquiry is one of the first to examine energy management in the food sector at the family firm level through the contingency lens. Theoretically, the results draw attention and shed new light on disparate energy management practices and their discrete yet substantial contribution to sales performance.

Challenging the "integration imperative": A customer perspective on omnichannel journeys

Omnichannel literature largely assumes that retailers should integrate touchpoints across channels to promote seamless experiences. This paper challenges this assumption by exploring how perceived journey integration affects customer experience in omnichannel retailing. A qualitative study reveals that two dimensions of journey integration—consistency and connectivity—interact to form four patterns of omnichannel journeys, each prompting distinct experiences. When looking at this phenomenon through the customer’s perspective, we find that there are cases in which low consistency or connectivity can trigger positive experiences, contradicting extant literature. We then formulate research propositions that challenge the “integration imperative” in the omnichannel literature and provide managerial implications for retail firms that want to improve their customers’ experiences.

Apportioning limited supplies to competing retailers under panic buying and associated consumer traveling costs

Motivated by rising product insecurity during the initial waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resultant need for consumers to travel further to buy scarce products, we address the possibility of shortages as a result of panic buying. In particular, we study the effect of competition on inventory and pricing by considering the case in which a manufacturer apportions a scarce product to two competing retailers. We find that competition does not always effectively respond to panic buying and can cause frequent price oscillations when the market is shared equally between the two retail firms. On the other hand, in contrast to the case of monopolistic retailing, competition enables the manufacturer to regulate the cost that consumers incur even if the wholesale price is fixed. Specifically, when the market location is biased towards one of the two firms, the manufacturer can apportion supplies to the firms in such a way as to increase the average cost (which includes the retail price and the consumers’ traveling costs), thereby mitigating panic buying and reducing the risk of shortage. Alternatively, when the panic is not severe, the manufacturer can apportion in a way that decreases the average cost, thereby meeting a social welfare-oriented goal in the framework of distributing a scarce product.

Moody’s Ratings Statistical Forecasting for Industrial and Retail Firms

Long-term ratings of companies are obtained from public data plus some additional nondisclosed information. A model based on data from firms’ public accounts is proposed to directly obtain these ratings, showing fairly close similitude with published results from Credit Rating Agencies. The rating models used to assess the creditworthiness of a firm may involve some possible conflicts of interest, as companies pay for most of the rating process and are, thus, clients of the rating firms. Such loss of faith among investors and criticism toward the rating agencies were especially severe during the financial crisis in 2008. To overcome this issue, several alternatives are addressed; in particular, the focus is on elaborating a rating model for Moody’s long-term companies’ ratings for industrial and retailing firms that could be useful as an external check of published rates. Statistical and artificial intelligence methods are used to obtain direct prediction of awarded rates in these sectors, without aggregating adjacent classes, which is usual in previous literature. This approach achieves an easy-to-replicate methodology for real rating forecasts based only on public available data, without incurring the costs associated with the rating process, while achieving a higher accuracy. With additional sampling information, these models can be extended to other sectors.

THE IMPACT OF INVENTORY CONTROL PRACTICES ON COST REDUCTION: THE CASE OF LEBANESE RETAIL COMPANIES

Inventory is a significant aspect in administration of items and services or other commodities that are kept in storage by companies and organizations. The research deals with four research variables which are vendor management inventory, lean practices, inventory management and strategic supplier management in their relation to the performance of retail companies. The research is based on the use of the mixed study approach, which aims at defining the effects of inventory control on cost reduction and operational performance of retail firms in Lebanon. The research addressed 123 respondents from the two companies. Also, the researcher has carried out six interviews with three managers from each of these two companies. The data was collected using Google forms, and then analyzed using SPSS. Descriptive analysis, inferential statistics and normality distributions were used to analyze the collected data, and the research has found a direct relationship between vendor inventory management, inventory stock taking, lean practices and strategic supplier relationships and the operational performance of the companies in question. The research recommended three new models to be implemented in further studies, and these models include the independent variables as a dependent variable. 

Income or education?Community‐levelantecedents of firms'category‐spanningactivities

AbstractResearch SummaryThis study investigates the relationships between consumer income, consumer education, and firms' propensities to span multiple market categories. Despite their positive correlation, I theorize contrasting effects of income and education on firms' variety‐enhancing spanning. Specifically, I propose that the strong purchasing power of high‐income communities should reduce the need for firms to operate in multiple categories, but culturally omnivorous preferences among educated elites should encourage firms' spanning. Analyses of 6,072 restaurants in a metropolitan area and a large‐scale survey offer support for these predictions. Education, though not income, has a further positive effect on firms' atypicality‐enhancing spanning. This study contributes to category and management research by focusing on audience heterogeneity as important antecedents of firms' action and explicating the multifaceted nature of spanning.Managerial SummaryThis study examines how restaurants decide their culinary categories and menus depending on residents' income and education levels of a city they are located in. I find restaurants in higher‐income communities tend to be more specialized in a single or fewer categories while those in lower‐income communities are more likely to diversify into multiple categories to reach a broader customer base. By comparison, restaurants in more educated communities tend to diversify into multiple categories and provide fusion food because educated cultural omnivores like to explore novelty. These findings imply that retail firms should consider the separate effects of income and education levels of target consumers in determining their business scope and product portfolio.

Natural disasters, firm survival, and growth: Evidence from the Ise Bay Typhoon, Japan

AbstractThis paper investigates the damage impact of the 1959 Ise Bay Typhoon on firm survival and survivor performance in Nagoya City, Japan. We combine firm‐level data with a local damage proxy storm surge‐induced flooding. We find that firms in retail and wholesale were less and those in manufacturing more likely to survive after being flooding. There was some evidence of spillover effects from nearby regions on firm exit. Surviving firm performance was heterogeneous across sectors in that some (manufacturing and construction) upgraded and others (retail and wholesale) their capital. Indirect impacts from nearby regions were both positive and negative, contingent on the sector of operation.

Increasing the Adoption of Canadian Retail Businesses’ Websites: Canadian Young Generation Consumers' Enticement

This research contributes significantly to academic and practitioner knowledge in the areas of young generation customers' enticement for expanding the adoption of small companies and internet commerce. This is the first time that a study has been done especially on the behavioral usage of Canadian Young consumers' websites by Canadian retail businesses. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of how the Canadian Young Generation engages with retail firms' websites. The research model for this study is an adaptation of the UTAUT2 paradigm. It reaffirms the literature review's usage of the modified UTAUT2 model to describe this research. This research aims to fill a need in the existing knowledge about the Canadian Young Generation's use of retail firms' websites. It is critical that additional steps to protect security and privacy, as well as to create trust, be implemented to improve the Young Generation's confidence in the retail websites of small Canadian firms. Internet costs remain high in Canada, and it is proposed that the Canadian federal government provide additional licenses to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in order to increase competition among ISPs and therefore decrease Internet charges.
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How Consistent Are Consumers in Their Decisions? Investigation of Houseplant Purchasing.

This paper examines the impact of intrinsic consumer attributes on decision consistency in houseplant purchasing intentions. Subjects reported their likelihood to buy (LTB) for themselves and as a gift at perceived bargain and getting expensive price levels. The sample was analyzed according to those who switched their LTB ratings to relatively lower values versus subjects who did not by using their demographic characteristics and responses to plant buying behavior questions. Secondly, subjects who had high initial purchase intents were analyzed versus those who had low initial purchase intents. The results indicate that inconsistent purchase decisions are more likely to occur at the perceived getting expensive price level than the perceived bargain price points. Additionally, there are very few demographic differences among the plant buyers who are consistent with their purchase intent versus inconsistent, indicating that external environmental cues may have more of an influence on purchase consistency than intrinsic cues. This information can be utilized by greenhouse and retail firms to understand when a consumer is less likely to change their plant purchase decision with a high initial intent. These price points can help firms optimize their current price offerings within the market and create dialogues with partnering box stores.

Does national culture matter? Understanding the impact of supply chain integration in multiple countries

PurposeWith increasing globalization, supply chain management in various national cultures requires understanding. This study aims to examine the moderating effects of individualistic and uncertainty avoidance cultures on the relationship between supply chain integration (SCI) and different dimensions of firm performance (i.e. flexibility and financial).Design/methodology/approachThis study collected 124 pairwise survey data from supply chain and senior managers of retail firms in 35 countries. Hofstede’s national culture index was used to examine the moderating effects. Structural equation modeling and regression analysis were used to test the model.FindingsResults corroborate that in a higher uncertainty avoidance culture, the positive influence of SCI on flexibility performance is stronger, but that on financial performance is weaker. By contrast, individualism reduces the positive influence of SCI on financial performance, but does not moderate that on flexibility performance.Originality/valueThis paper proposes a contingent model for SCI-performance relationships by integrating the relational view and the national cultural perspective. Critical national cultural dimensions moderate the effects of SCI on flexibility and financial performance. Therefore, operational managers should design differential SCI strategies in various cultural settings.

Innovation in small family firms: A qualitative multipla case study

Family firms, accounting globally for the majority of companies, are the backbone of many national and local economies. Despite their importance as both employers and producers/service providers, research on these firms, analyzing their innovative behavior or comparing it with other forms of companies, has often been describing them as more conservative and less risk-raking, generating thus less innovation compared with other types of businesses. The goal of this study was to analyze the scope innovative activities in family owned companies on the basis of an empirical qualitative survey, founded on descriptive multiple-case study analysis of fifteen small, locally operating family owned firms in retail and service-industry, which have successfully survived 5 or more years in business. It used semi structured interviews with family owners and focused on identifying their attitudes to innovation as well as their skills to apply innovations of various types, important for their market competitiveness. The results of the survey, contrary to some earlier findings pointing to family firms ́ conservativeness, showed that these firms, due to their specific organizational culture, rely on innovations substantially, though the main focus of their innovations tends to be on product/technological changes as well as innovations in clients ́ relations.

An examination of the dynamics of operating efficiency of wholesale and retail firms

This study investigates whether a firm's competitive advantage, measured by its relative operating efficiency, can be maintained in the long run. Based on a sample of US listing firms in the wholesale and the retail industries from 1995 to 2015, we examine the dynamics of the trend and stability of firms' operating efficiency in the long run. We find that companies that are moving ahead in the short run cannot guarantee their operating efficiency status in the long run. In the long run, operating efficiency can trend upwards, downwards, fluctuate, or remain flat. The findings are consistent to both industries, except that in the retail industry, there are more firms that consistently fall behind than firms that are in other categories of efficiency. This study provides implications for firms to measure and improve their operating efficiency dynamically over the short and long horizons to win the competitive market.

Watching the Grass Grow: Does Recreational Cannabis Legalization Affect Labor Outcomes?

Over the past several years, cannabis has become legal for recreational use in several U.S. states and jurisdictions around the world. The opening of these markets has led to the establishment of hundreds of cannabis production and retail firms with accompanying demand for labor, leading to concerns about spillover effects on wages from incumbents. We study the markets for agricultural and retail labor in Washington and Colorado, early legalizers with now-established cannabis markets. Using a synthetic control technique to account for the possibility of border-state spillover effects and machine learning techniques for data imputation and variable selection, we find no evidence that cannabis legalization is associated with increases in per-employee wages, neither within industries most similar to cannabis production or retail, nor in more broad industry categories. We conclude that cannabis legalization is unlikely to negatively impact incumbent firms through the labor market channel.