Retail Selling Research Articles

Rice Distribution Pattern: A Study on Food Security in South Kalimantan

In recent years, South Kalimantan has experienced rice surplus and been appointed as one of the nation’s rice barns. However, the distribution pattern of rice produce in the province is not clearly described. The distribution pattern itself plays an important role in the context of rice availability and food security. The study is aimed at investigating the rice distribution pattern in South Kalimantan. The method used was supply-demand model with system dynamics approach. Price was the experimental variable. Initially, the stakeholder roles were investigated, followed by the development of causal loop diagram (CLD), stock and flow diagram (SFD), validation, verification, and finally simulations. South Kalimantan rice supply chain is generally operated by farmers, village middleman, larger collectors, rice millers, urban wholesalers (distributors), retail sellers, and consumers. The distribution pattern is influenced by the location of rice producing area, the location of large miller/collector/wholesaler area, rice variety, and consumer preferences.

Microbiological quality of “Doner kebab” sold in retail in Sao Paulo- Brazil

Microbiological quality of “Doner kebab” sold in retail in Sao Paulo- Brazil

E-Tailing with FinTech: Instant Return Credit

Problem Definition: Instant return credit (in short, return-credit) is a new FinTech service that offers a store credit immediately upon a return claim, without requiring the return to be received. Improving consumers’ budget, this helps convert online returns into new sales, but it also results in costly fake returns from consumers with low credit-rating. We study whether or not and how retailers should adopt return-credit and its implications on their optimal pricing strategy and profit and consumers’ welfare. Academic/Practice Relevance: This return-credit service is recently launched by a startup FinTech company, Returnly, and adopted by many retailers with impressive results. This paper is the first to provide some necessary guidance for this new practice. Methodology: We build a stylized economic model to capture the basic dynamics and tradeoff of return-credit. For a retailer selling two horizontally differentiated products, we study and compare three different cases: no, unconditional and conditional (on consumer-type) return-credit. For each case, we first optimize the consumers’ sequential decisions involving orders and return and then optimize the retailer’s strategy on pricing and return-credit. Results: The retailer should adopt the return-credit service; when adopt, she should make the return-credit conditional if no additional cost required, regardless of the product category. She should also prepare to switch to an asymmetric pricing, although the two products are symmetric (in cost and consumer valuation). This adoption, however, may hurt all consumers for low-cost products due to the retailer’s elevated pricing power by return-credit. But, making the return- credit conditional on consumer-type will almost always reward high credit-rating consumers, but penalize low credit-rating consumers. Managerial Implications: Our results provide retailers with an initial guidance and insights on how to implement return-credit and its major implications on the retailer (significant strategy change and what product-category to start implement), and consumers (both types of return-credit may hurt, but the conditional one is fairer).

Trade credit policy of an inventory model with imprecise variable demand: an ABC-GA approach

In this research work, an inventory model with fuzzy promotional effort induced dynamic demand under two level partial trade credit policy has been developed in an imprecise planning horizon. Here, it is assumed that in the planning horizon a retailer completed a finite number full cycles. In each of the retailer’s cycle, a wholesaler offers a credit period to the retailer on the full purchased amount and in turn the retailer offers a credit period to its customers on a part of his/her purchased amount. The imprecise marketing demand is influenced by the retailer’s fuzzy promotional effort, customers’ credit period, customers’ credit amount and retail selling price. Goal of this study is to find the optimal business strategy for the retailer with respect to his/her total fuzzy financial gain from the system. Due to imprecise nature of the demand, the problem is mathematically represented following fuzzy differential equation and fuzzy Riemann integration and alpha-cut of the entire fuzzy gain from the system is derived. Its graded mean integration representation is computed and optimized with respect to customer’s credit amount credit period, and retailer’s order quantity for most appropriate marketing decision. Hence, the problem reduced to a multivariate crisp optimization problem and a heuristic, multichoice artificial bee genetic algorithm (MCABGA) has been proposed for it. The efficiency of MCABGA is tested against some other existing artificial bee colony variants using a list of benchmark test functions available in the literature. The model is illustrated with some hypothetical test problems and some managerial insights are outlined. Finally, a conclusion is drawn and some future research directions are proposed.

Power structure and channel integration strategy for online retailers

With the boom of e-commerce, express delivery has been increasingly regarded as a bottleneck and key factor for achieving success. Additionally, whether to include such express delivery service or not is an important yet outstandingly unsolved problem for online retailers. In this regard, this paper uses a game-theoretic framework to investigate the channel structure, in which an offline retailer competes with an online retailer selling products to consumers through its partner express company. The consumers purchase from either an online or offline channel considering the delivery service as well as the inconvenience of shopping from physical stores. We consider three power structures: online retailer Stackelberg game, offline retailer Stackelberg game and Nash game. Under each power structure, we characterize the channel integration strategy for the online retailer. Interestingly, our results show that the online channel integration is not beneficial for the online retailer in most cases. Online retailers prefer to use express companies as intermediaries to avoid large logistics operations costs in the offline retailer Stackelberg game and Nash game. Only in the online retailer Stackelberg game, where the online retailer has the first-move advantage in the market, together with a moderate store-visiting inconvenience cost and a delivery service cost coefficient, will vertical integration improve the online channel’s profit. Dominant market power ensures sufficient profit to cover the logistics cost, and the moderate inconvenience cost and service cost coefficient promise a moderate logistics cost. Under this condition, the online retailer will choose the vertical integration strategy. We show in the extension that this strict condition can be relaxed when the online retailer owns a mixed channel. The online retailer with a mixed channel has more incentive to integrate than a pure online retailer does, as the mixed channel adds his power and helps to gain more market shares and profit. Our analysis generates managerial insights into the relationship between online retailers and express companies and provides a guide for implementing the vertical integration strategy in the online retailing industry.

Determination of antibiotic residues in Indian honeys and assessment of potential risks to consumers

Honey, being a healthy and natural product, is considered a valuable food commodity across the globe. However, injudicious use of antibiotics to prevent and control bacterial foulbrood diseases of honey bees not only contaminate honey but may also pose potential risks to human health. In this context, 150 commercial honey samples from India were investigated for the presence of oxytetracycline, erythromycin and chloramphenicol residues. The competitive immunoassay and chromatographic methods used for detection of antibiotic residue were validated as per European Commission decision. Oxytetracycline and erythromycin with concentrations above tolerance limits established by FSSAI were detected in 15.3% and 5.3% samples, respectively. Majority of oxytetracycline contaminated samples were uncertified branded (21.4%) and unbranded honeys (14.3%) sold in retail markets trailed by certified branded honeys (10.2%). All the erythromycin positive samples were uncertified ones. The honey samples screened by competitive ELISA were found to be free from chloramphenicol residues. Further, potential human health risks associated with exposure to antibiotics detected in honey were also evaluated. Although, estimated daily intakes of antibiotic residues were found to be lower than the established acceptable daily intakes but the presence of antibiotics in honey is a considerable public health concern especially for children, old and ill people. The results of present study suggests that continuous residue monitoring programs, accompanied by educational programs to the beekeepers’ on beehive management are indispensable to meet the expectations of food safety and public health at both national and international fronts.

Demand signal transmission in a certified refurbishing supply chain: rules and incentive analysis

Retailers, who sell certified refurbished products, usually have accumulated big data on demand properties, and hence, hold demand signal advantages over the other supply chain parties. In practice, we observe that this signal might be voluntarily shared to a rival who sells regular products. We are therefore interested in the incentives of demand signal transmission of the retailer selling certified refurbished products, and the value of an accurate signal for the other supply chain parties, especially in a one-to-two supply chain comprising a manufacturer (producing both regular and certified refurbished products) and two retailers (selling regular and certified refurbished products, respectively). We formulate the two retailers’ competition and demand signal properties, and find that it is of the best interest for the manufacturer to produce two products, regardless of the possible downstream competition. We derive interesting demand signal transmission rules that the retailer selling certified refurbished products would voluntarily transmit the signal to the retailer (the rival) selling regular products, while it will not transmit the signal to the upstream manufacturer (the business partner). Even if the retailer selling regular products obtains the signal, it will not transmit the signal to the manufacturer either. We discuss the resulting insights regarding the production cost reduction, the government subsidy, and the product quality improvement. We find that the signal transmission rule is robust, and the retailers’ profits may be reduced by the quality improvement of the certified refurbished product.

“Product + logistics” bundling sale and co-delivery in cross-border e-commerce

When customers purchase products via cross-border e-commerce, they care about both the product quality and the logistics service quality. Actually, retailers are selling “product + logistics” to customers, although their contracted logistics service provider (LSP) might not be preferred by customers. In practice, it is observed that a retailer selling high-quality products tends to contract with multiple LSPs to ensure higher customer volumes and the overall high quality of “product + logistics”. However, interestingly, we find that the LSP’s profits might be negatively affected by serving two competing retailers, and preferences of the LSP and the retailer selling high-quality products through logistical cooperation result in two “prisoner’s dilemma” regions. We also identify the size of the system’s profit pie and the allocation rules among the competing LSPs and retailers. We show that it is possible to observe competing retailers’ co-delivery, which benefits both the LSP and the retailer selling high-quality products.

Capacity Allocation and Compensation in a Dual-Channel Supply Chain under Uncertain Environment

The dual-channel supply chain is widely adopted by main manufacturers, potentially incurring channel conflicts between the traditional retail channel which is owned by the independent retailer and the online channel which is directly managed by the manufacturer. The purpose of this paper is to deal with the scenario where channel conflicts may arise under production capacity uncertainty, when the manufacturer tends to privilege the direct selling channel over the retail selling channel. To achieve the goal, this paper establishes a Stackelberg game model consisting of a manufacturer and a retailer, studies the scenario where the manufacturer satisfies the direct selling channel first in the presence of capacity uncertainty, employs the decision optimization and the backward induction method to find the optimal inventory decision in the direct selling channel and the optimal order quantity decision making in the retail selling channel, and designs a compensation mechanism aiming to coordinate the channel conflict in the decentralized decision-making process. Results show that the optimal decisions aiming to maximize the expected profit of each supply chain member are not able to maximize the expected profit of entire dual-channel supply chain. However, when the manufacturer compensates the retailer’s profit loss based on the unsatisfied order and, in the meantime, adjusts the wholesale price to prevent the retailer which obtains the compensation from increasing order significantly, the compensation mechanism can coordinate the decision of each supply chain member, mitigate the channel conflict, maximize the expected profit of entire dual-channel supply chain, and achieve the Pareto improvement of supply chain members’ expected profit in the decentralized decision-making process.

Cigarette retailer density around schools and neighbourhoods in Bali, Indonesia: A GIS mapping.

INTRODUCTIONThe presence and density of tobacco retailers is associated with the perception of high availability of cigarettes and ease of purchase. Indonesia is the second largest cigarette market in the world with an increasing smoking rate among young people aged 10–18 years. Our study aims to assess density of cigarette outlets in neighbourhoods and around schools, and to evaluate correlation between retailer proximity to schools and retailer selling practices.METHODSWe conducted a geographical mapping and then an audit survey of 1000 randomly selected cigarette retailers in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia. We measured neighbourhood retailer density, and retailer proximity to schools. We linked the coordinate data to the audit data to assess the association between retailer distance from schools with likelihood of selling tobacco to young people and selling single cigarette sticks.RESULTSWe mapped 4114 cigarette retailers in Denpasar, the most common type was a kiosk, 3199 (77.8%), followed by mini market/convenience stores, 606 (14.7%). Retailer density was 32.2/km2 and 4.6/1000 population. We found that 37 (9.7 %) of the 379 schools in Denpasar have at least one cigarette retailer within a 25 m radius and 367 (96.8%) within a 250 m radius. Of the 485 audited retailers within a 250 m radius of a school, 281 (57.9%) admitted selling cigarettes to young people and 325 (67.0%) sold cigarettes as single sticks. Cigarette retailers were less likely to sell cigarettes to young people based on distance from schools, but this was only significant at the furthest distance of more than 500 m from schools.CONCLUSIONSIn an unregulated retailer setting such as Indonesia, cigarette retailers are ubiquitous and selling to young people is commonplace. The Indonesian government should enforce the prohibition on selling to young people and should regulate cigarette retailers to reduce youth access to cigarettes.

EFISIENSI PEMASARAN BUAH JAMBLANG (Syzygium cumini (L) Skeels) (STUDI KASUS DI DESA TRIWIDADI, KECAMATAN PAJANGAN, KABUPATEN BANTUL, PROVINSI YOGYAKARTA)

Jamblang is one of multipurpose tree species especially utilised for medical purposes. However, population of jamblang tree on private land in Bantul district is still limited because of less information on jamblang’s advantage value and its silvicultural technique. The objective of the research is to find out the marketing flow and the efficiency of jamblang fruit in Triwidadi Village, Pajangan Sub District, Bantul District of Yogyakarta. The Data was collected by interviewing 15 farmers who owned jamblang trees, 1distributor and 1 retailer using snowball method. The research shows that marketing flow of jamblang should contain several marketing institutions i.e : producer/farmers, collector, retailer and customer through 3 models of marketing flow. In first model of marketing flow, farmers sell un-harvested jamblang fruit (still on the tree) to the collectors, then the collectors sell it to the retailer and the retailer sell it to the customer. In the second method, farmers sell the harvested jamblang fruit to the collectors to be continued to the retailer and then the customer. Meanwhile, in the third marketing flow, farmers sell the harvested jamblang fruit directly to the retailer to be continued to the last customers. Marketing system of jamblang throughsecond and third method is more efficient then the first marketing because the methods have lower margin (Rp 2500 /kg) and farmer’s share more than 50% (58.33%).

Research on the complexity of green innovative enterprise in dynamic game model and governmental policy making

Nowadays, with more and more people choosing energy-saving product, green supply chain is increasingly becoming popular. In this paper, we build a dynamic Stackelberg game model that contains government, two green innovation enterprise which is a leader and produces two kinds of green product with similar function but different quality and a retailer selling two kinds of green product meanwhile. We use classical backward induction to solve the model. Price decision is considered first and is divided into two stages. We analyze the equilibrium price of green innovation enterprise and retailer and the stable region. Next, we analyze energy-saving index of two kinds of green product. Through numerical simulation, we further analyze system's stability conditions and system's dynamic evolution process when different parameter is adopted. In the end, we consider green products’ baseline energy-saving index made by government and get the optimal baseline energy-saving index by numerical simulation. We find that too stringent subsidy standards may can't induce manufacturer to invest greener technology. Besides, we use the delay feedback control to effectively control the chaotic phenomenon.

When Should a Retailer Introduce a Third Party Platform Channel Under Spillovers from Offline to Online Sales?

With the increasing popularity of third-party platforms, some retailers have used third-party platform to sell their products in addition to their own online and offline channels, while others retailers have not. An important question thus arises: should a retailer sell through a third-party platform when online and offline channels have existed, and if so, which selling format the retailer should adopt. Considering the interaction between channels, this study establishes a model in which the spillover effect can act in two directions: spillover from offline to Internet channels and spillover from Internet to offline channels. Three scenarios are explored: a dual-channel scenario (D); a multi-channel scenario: reselling (MR); and a multi-channel scenario: agency selling (MA). We investigate how the direction of spillover effects influences the retailer’s channel selection decision and selling format preference. The value of the online channel and the path of channel selection are also discussed. Our theoretical analysis shows that a retailer with both online and offline channels always benefits from the use of a third-party platform channel. However, if there is no online channel and the spillover effect is from offline to internet channels, the retailer should not adopt the third-party platform when the channel competition is high and the spillover effect is small. Channel competition, agency fee, spillover effects, and their directions moderate the retailer’s and the third-party platform’s selection decision of the selling format. Specifically, if the agency fee is low and the channel competition is medium, as the spillover effect increases, the retailer is more likely to prefer MR under the spillovers from offline to Internet channels but to prefer MA when the spillovers are from Internet to offline channels. We also find that the relationship between the online channel and the third-party platform channel is complementary, and in most cases, the best path of channel introduction is from S (offline channel) to D, and then to MR/MA. There are two Pareto zones under the spillovers from offline to Internet channels.

Detection of Salmonella spp. in broiler chicken meat sold in retail markets of Yerevan, Armenia

Detection of Salmonella spp. in broiler chicken meat sold in retail markets of Yerevan, Armenia

Knowledge, Perceptions, and Patterns of Fish Oil Use in Cardiac Patients

Background: Fish oils are the most widely used nonvitamin, nonmineral dietary supplements in the United States. They are not over-the-counter medications and are neither approved nor indicated for treating disease. Patient knowledge and patterns of fish oil use are not well defined. Objective: To determine cardiac patients’ knowledge and patterns of fish oil use. Methods: One thousand consecutive patients admitted to an in-patient cardiology service (2015-2017) taking fish oil dietary supplements or prescription omega-3 fatty acids were asked to complete an anonymous questionnaire concerning product knowledge and use. Results: A total of 711 (71%) patients completed the questionnaire. Primary reasons for use included general health (34%), heart health (28%), arthritis (9%), and lipid disorders (8%). Few patients (14%) were advised to take fish oil products by a health-care provider. Only 2.5% were taking prescription omega-3 fatty acids. Only 26% knew the active ingredient in their fish oil product. Supplements were purchased through a nonpharmacy retail seller by 81% of respondents. Conclusions: Most cardiac patients consuming fish oil dietary supplements do so without medical supervision and without knowledge of the active ingredients. As most patients obtain supplements outside of a pharmacy, opportunities to monitor and educate patients remain a major challenge.

Retail in the Russian Federation in the Economic and Social Context. Part I. Industry-Specific Problems in Retail

The paper analyzes the current state of the retail network in the Russian Federation, such as: its place in the economic structure, the presence and geographical location of retail outlets, their specific structure, the size of retail space including modern formats, the distribution of chain retail and distance selling, employment and wages. Shortcomings of state retail regulation and the potential for the development of the economic sector are discussed.

Do Retail Investors Use SEC Filings? Evidence from EDGAR Search

We address whether retail investors use SEC filings when making trading decisions. We find that retail investor trading, both buying and selling, is significantly related to EDGAR search for 10-K and 10-Q filings, more so than to Google search. This is true for firms with high or low visibility, firm-days with and without press coverage, and during or excluding earnings-announcement and filing windows. The results of lead-lag and two-stage-least square analyses are consistent with search leading to trade. In addition, the direction of retail investors’ trading is consistent with the direction of earnings changes reported in the downloaded filings, suggesting that retail investor trading direction is influenced by the accounting information they read in the filings. We also find that the significantly positive relation between retail trading and EDGAR search is strongest for the most easily readable 10-K and 10-Q filings. Finally, we find that retail investor trading-predicted returns are higher on days with heavier EDGAR search, consistent with retail investors making more profitable, or at least less loss making, trades when doing more research on EDGAR. Overall, our results provide strong evidence that retail investors use EDGAR filings data in making their trading decisions.

Integrating dynamic pricing and inventory control for fresh‐agri product under consumer choice

In this article, we investigate a joint pricing and inventory problem for a retailer selling fresh‐agri products (FAPs) with two‐period shelf lifetime in a dynamic stochastic setting, where new and old FAPs are on sale simultaneously. At the beginning of each period, the retailer makes ordering decision for new FAP and sets regular and discount prices for new and old inventories, respectively. After demand realisation, the expired leftover is disposed and unexpired inventory is carried to the next period, for continuing selling. Unmet demand of all FAPs is backordered. The objective is to maximise the total expected discount profit over the whole planning horizon. We present a price dependent, stochastic dynamic programming model taking into account zero lead‐time, linear ordering costs, inventory holding and backlogging costs, as well as disposal cost. As the influence of the perishability, each customer selects his preferred choice based on the utility of product price and quality. By the way of constructing demand rate vector, the original formulation can be transferred to be jointly concave and tractable. Finally, we characterise the optimal policy and develop effective methods to solve the problem. We also conduct numerical studies to further characterise the optimal policy, and to evaluate the loss of efficiency under static policies when compared to the optimal dynamic policy.

Analysis of Bundling Homogeneous Content Product in Different Formats

Content digitalization brings products with homogeneous content but in different formats (digital format and physical format) together. Recently retailers in the online book industry started bundling programs such as Amazon Matchbook, giving print book buyers a free or deeply discounted e-book version. While this bundling strategy is attractive to consumers, it potentially allows consumers to resell the print book in the bundle, which might cannibalize retailers' sales. Consequently, it will influence all participants in the industry including the publisher, the retailers, and the consumers. Using a two-period model, the authors investigate the impacts of this strategy under both monopoly and competition. The authors compute the equilibrium outcome for both scenarios. The findings show that (1) under monopoly, both the publisher and the retailer sell at a higher rate; consumers also see higher total surplus; (2) under competition, the retailer who provides bundling will gain a competitive advantage. This study indicates that the bundling model yields a win-win strategy.

Optimal pricing in mass customization supply chains with risk-averse agents and retail competition

We analytically investigate the optimal pricing decisions in a mass customization (MC) supply chain with one risk averse manufacturer and two risk averse competing retailers. The manufacturer is the Stackelberg leader, which offers a wholesale pricing contract to the retailers. After receiving the wholesale price, each retailer decides the retail selling price for the MC product simultaneously. We first prove the existence of a unique pricing equilibrium and then derive the optimal prices. After that, we focus our attention on exploring how the degree of risk aversion of each supply chain agent affects the optimal prices as well as consumer welfare, supply chain profitability, and credit deposit under a competitive setting. We find that a more risk averse manufacturer will offer a lower wholesale price, which leads to lower retail selling prices offered to the market. For the retailers, if a retailer is more risk averse, it will make the manufacturer offer a higher wholesale price and it will set a lower retail selling price; however, whether the competing retailer will increase or decrease the retail selling price depends on the level of competition. We examine the impacts brought by the market demand uncertainties as well as the respective demand correlation. We conclude by revealing that in the sufficiently competitive market environment, consumers enjoying MC services are benefited more but the supply chain profitability may decrease more (depending on how risk averse the agents are) when (i) the manufacturer and retailers are more risk averse, (ii) demand uncertainties and the correlation between market demands are higher. We also find that the retailers need to pay more credit deposit if the manufacturer is more risk averse or the demand correlation is higher. Finally, we consider the MC product improvement scheme in the extended model and reveal that it is a Pareto improving optimal measure if the supply chain agents are not too risk averse and the increment in production cost is sufficiently small.