Sales Season Research Articles

Will Seasonality Patterns for Beef Export Sales and Commitments Hold in 2021?

First two paragraphs: Trade occurs when price differences between the two locations are large enough after accounting for transportation cost, exchange rates, tariffs, etc. Exports vary throughout the year since prices reflect current and future supply and demand situations. Seasonality in cattle production, meat demand, and market disruptions are some examples of why wholesale beef prices increase and decrease within a year. The inability to market cattle in the second quarter of 2020 and increased demand for retail beef products due to government gathering restrictions in restaurants caused wholesale beef prices to rise to historical levels. Beef wholesalers can choose to market beef to the domestic market (retail or food service) or the export market. So how did higher domestic wholesale beef prices impact beef export sales and commitments in 2020? Likewise, knowing how the market worked through supply and demand disruptions in 2020, what can we reasonably expect from export sales and commitments in 2021? These questions can be partially answered by looking at historical seasonal export sales and commitment patterns and comparing 2020 to years with large trade disruptions.

Decision and Coordination in the Dual-Channel Supply Chain Considering the Risk-Averse and Customer Returns

The biggest disadvantage of online shopping is that it is impossible to accurately assess the suitability of goods prior to purchase. Customers usually check “fit” at home, and thus one third of internet sales are returned. We study the pricing and ordering of a dual-channel supply chain which composed of risk-neutral manufacturers and risk-averse retailers serving customers who differ in how they purchase products in store or online. Customers may return misfit products either to stores for a full refund or online as per the retailer’s return policy. At the beginning of the sale season, channels order from manufacturers and set prices to be identical across channels. According to the criterion of conditional value at risk (CVaR), we express the problem as a Stackelberg game model and obtain the equilibrium solution under the conditions of decentralization and centralization. Further, we explore the impact of the retailer’s risk indicator and consumer returns rate on the optimal retail price, the ordering quantities, the profits of dual channels, and the overall profits of the supply chain. We find that dual-channel supply should reduce the risk aversion level of retailers and consumer return rate. Finally, the improved risk-sharing contract is proposed to coordinate the dual-channel supply chain in the presence of customer returns and risk-averse, and it is proved that the contract can achieve Pareto improvement of supply chain members.

A Real Options Asset Pricing Model With Seasonal Demand and Inventory Building

We develop a real options model in which a firm exposed to seasonal variations in its output price is able to produce output, store it, and sell it later, separating the production and selling decisions. The model suggests that the optimal policy for a firm with low inventory costs is to spread out its production over some period up to its high price season, hold its output in inventory until that season, and sell it then. Doing so, such a firm gradually lowers its operating leverage and thus its expected return up until its high price season. Conversely, the optimal policy for a firm with high inventory costs is to produce its output closer to its high price season, inducing its expected return to be more stable over time. In accordance with our model, we show that Grullon et al.’s (2020) result that single-stock returns tend to be lower (higher) in their high (low) seasonal sales quarters is attributable to inventory building firms, suggesting that neoclassical finance theory aligns with that evidence.

Black Friday Tool for Sales Promotion

The article summarizes scientific views and defines the term of sales promotion. Features of promotion and sales promotion in B2C (Business-to-Consumer) markets are revealed. The use of digital marketing tools in the process of stimulating the sales of goods through digital channels, in particular through online stores, as well as the use of search engine optimization (SEO) and SMM-marketing is substantiated. Marketing communications and sales promotion elements used by retailers when preparing for seasonal sales are considered. The activity of consumers to retailers in the period of the preparation for grand sales, tools used by retail trade to influence the consumer and improve the activity of sales of goods is studied. The authors summarize and analyze statistic data of such online platforms as Black-friday.global, Picodi, Google Trends. The factors influencing the opportunities of online shopping and retail during Black Friday are explored and outlined. The peculiarities of trading platforms functioning, which provide online shopping space for various retail enterprises and offer marketing communications of retailers to increase the efficiency of product promotion on the Internet, are highlighted. Keywords: product promotion, sales promotion, Black Friday, marketing communications, digital marketing, retail, marketplace.

Disclosing Product Availability in Online Retail

Problem definition: Online retailers disclose product availability to influence customer decisions as a form of pressure selling designed to compel customers to rush into a purchase. Can the revelation of this information drive sales and profitability? We study the effect of disclosing product availability on market outcomes—product sales and returns—and identify the contexts where this effect is most powerful. Academic/practical relevance: Increasing sell-out is key for online retailers to remain profitable in the presence of thin margins and complex operations. We provide insights into how their information-disclosure policy—something they can tailor at virtually no cost—can contribute to this important objective. Methodology: We collaborate with an online retailer to procure a year of transaction data on 190,696 products that span 1,290 brands and 472,980 customers. To causally identify our results, we use a generalized difference-in-differences design with matching that exploits one policy of the firm: it discloses product availability only for the last five units. Results: The disclosure of low product availability increases hourly sales—they grow by 13.6%—but these products are more likely to be returned—product return rates increase by 17.0%. Because returns are costly, we also study net sales—product hourly sales minus hourly returns—which increase by 12.5% after the retailer reveals low availability. Managerial implications: The positive effects on sales and profitability amplify over wide assortments and when low-availability signals are abundantly visible and disclosed for deeply discounted products whose sales season is about to end. In addition, we propose a data-driven policy that exploits these results by using machine learning to prescribe the timing of disclosure of scarcity signals in order to boost sales without spiking returns. History: This paper has been accepted as part of the 2019 Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Practice-Based Research Competition.

El modelo del ciclo de vida del producto desde una perspectiva en las ventas del periodo 2016 – 2018 en el sector calzado de la ciudad de Ambato

Plasticaucho S.A is a company dedicated to the manufacture and commercialization of footwear, being one of the biggest footwear companies in the province of Tungurahua, satisfying its customers under strict quality processes, thanks to this the company is recognized at a national level under product lines, areas and commercial channels. For this reason, the following research work emphasizes a model of population growth based on the life cycle of the product that responded to a quantitative approach, not an experimental one of longitudinal character and relational reach, including the description of the participants, the design of the study and the evaluation instrument. It was sought to nuance: 1) to locate the lines of products according to the CVP; 2) to classify the commercial zones; 3) to identify the participation of the distribution channels. To reach these elements, we explored the sales budget (pairs), seasonality (months) and the 10 percent growth rate. The sales reports for the years 2016, 2017 and 2018 were used to develop the logistical model for population growth, thus demonstrating the approval of the limited life of the products and the seasonality of sales with the calculation of the Fisher coefficient with a result of: 0.08338, which helped to locate in which stage of the CVP each line, zone and commercial channel is located, attaching the stage of turbulence in the study as an emphasis for decision making. After the study carried out in the company Plasticaucho S.A, it is suggested that in the school, relax and sports footwear, the innovation of designs with avant-garde products should be promoted as a market demand and new marketing strat

Prediction of Air Cargo Volume Based on Grey-periodic Extensional Combinatorial Model

Aviation logistics volume changes over time is an obvious regularity. According to the characteristics of aviation logistics volume data, on the basis of common GM(1,1) model and by means of establishing residual error periodic extensional model, the paper extracts predominant period and reconstruct a new data sequence, it can well overcome the contradiction between the growth tendency and the periodic fluctuation of seasonal products sales. Applying the method, a typical simulation study was carried out to illustrate its validity. Is is found that the model can greatly increased the accuracy of aviation logistics volume predication

Identifying the factors of China's seasonal retail sales of consumer goods using a data grouping approach–based GRA method

PurposeSeasonal fluctuation interference often affects the relational analysis of economic time series. The main purpose of this paper is to propose a new grey relational model for relational analysis of seasonal time series and apply it to identify and eliminate the influence of seasonal fluctuation of retail sales of consumer goods in China.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the whole quarterly time series is divided into four groups by data grouping method. Each group only contains the time series data in the same quarter. Then, the new series of four-quarters are used to establish the grey correlation model and calculate its correlation coefficient. Finally, the correlation degree of factors in each group of data was calculated and sorted to determine its importance.FindingsThe data grouping method can effectively reflect the correlation between time series in different quarters and eliminate the influence of seasonal fluctuation.Practical implicationsIn this paper, the main factors influencing the quarterly fluctuations of retail sales of consumer goods in China are explored by using the grouped grey correlation model. The results show that the main factors are different from quarter to quarter: in the first quarter, the main factors are money supply, tax and per capita disposable income of rural residents. In the second quarter are money supply, fiscal expenditure and tax. In the third quarter are money supply, fiscal expenditure and per capita disposable income of rural residents. In the fourth quarter are money supply, fiscal expenditure and tax.Originality/valueThis paper successfully realizes the application of grey relational model in quarterly time series and extends the applicable scope of grey relational model.

Analiza sezonowości sprzedaży nowych pojazdów w Polsce w latach 2013-2018

Analysis of the seasonality of new vehicle sales in Poland in 2013-2018 The purpose of the article is to discuss the essence of the phenomenon of sales seasonality on the Polish automotive market. The subject of detailed analysis is an attempt to identify the direction, level of the trend, outliers and the distribution of seasonal fluctuations in the sale of new vehicles in Poland in 2013-2018. The ARIMA-X-12 and TRAMO-SEATS procedures were used to decompose time series. The analysis uses monthly data from January 2013 to October 2018, from the Central Register of Vehicles, published in monthly reports of the Polish Automotive Industry Association. Secondary data related to the sale of new passenger vehicles (for business entities and individual users), delivery vans, trucks, buses, trailers and semitrailers as well as motorcycles and mopeds. From the available reports and research shows that sales of new vehicles in Poland increased, with the exception of sales of motorcycles and mopeds. The authors showed that the sale of all vehicles was subject to seasonal fluctuations, which were associated with vehicle sales, closing the accounting year for commercial vehicles and seasons (motorcycles and mopeds. The authors state that the changes introduced regarding the registration of new vehicles, approvals and combustion standards were the cause of the so-called shocks on the automotive market.

Analysis of the Impact of Demand Volatility and Return Policies on a Price-setting Newsvendor

This paper studies a newsvendor problem in which the retailer can set both the selling price and the quantity ordered. The demand is stochastic and price-dependent and the retailer has the possibility to sell his unsold units at the end of the sales season. We present an analytical model of the retailer optimization process and show the conditions that the retailer can find optimal quantity and price simultaneously, then we use numerical methods to reveal the properties of retailer’s behavior. The existing results of price-setting newsvendor do not include buyback and our work brings a new condition on the lost sales rate elasticity for the computation of an optimal solution. Our results show that return policies can improve the profit of retailer and that this effect increases with the volatility of the demand. This observation reveals a crucial point for the supplier to design their contract according to demand uncertainty, allowing them to influence the retailer’s decision on price and order quantity by offering buy-back for unsold products.

What Stopped Experienced Online Shoppers from Buying: The Major Concerns during Annual Festival Season Sale

What Stopped Experienced Online Shoppers from Buying: The Major Concerns during Annual Festival Season Sale

Customers Online Shopping Experience - Comparison Among Amazon, Flipkart & Snapdeal

Today customers have a variety of online shopping sites from where they can make their purchases. Online shopping helps the customers to purchase all sorts of goods and services from all around the world. Online shopping is a method of shopping, in which the customers can purchase goods and services from any part of the world through the internet. Online shopping experienceof the customers with some online sites may bepositive whereas with some other sites it may be negative. Experience is gathered after making a shopping decision. A positive experience results due to better quality of products and services, reasonable pricing, timely delivery of products, offers and discounts (including festive offers and discounts), end of season sale etc. Positive experience leads to repetitive purchases. Negative experience results due to defective products, delay in the delivery of products, poor after sales services, delay or no refund given, no exchange facility etc.With reference to the three giant companies namely Amazon, Flipkart and Snapdeal, for the purpose of this study, primary data was collected through a structured Questionnaire and administered to 60 respondents. A simple percentage method was used to analyse the data and a non-parametrical test, Chi-square method was used to test the hypothesis. The study concludes that shopping experience by Amazon is better than the other two companies.

Poultry marketing in Ibadan–north Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria

Some government policies in Nigeria poultry industry fail partly because there is insufficient data on all the key players in the industry. This study was therefore, to collect information about poultry meat marketers and their activities in Ibadan–North Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. Questionnaires were randomly administered to a total of 100 poultry meat marketers in the study area to elicit information on their business. The collected data were processed and subjected to descriptive statistics using frequency counts and percentage. The result obtained showed that majority of the respondents were female (74%), had one form of education or the other and were less than 10 years in the business (48%). Also, majority of the respondents obtained poultry products from local farms (46%), were retailers (62%) and had target sales around Christmas and new year (56%) festive periods with 100-199kg (52%) as the average weekly sale. Poor meat transportation facilities (50%), poor electricity supply (54%) and seasonal sales (52%) were major problems encountered by the respondents concerning purchases, storage and sales of poultry products respectively. Concerning poultry products being contraband in Nigeria, 64% of the respondents claimed they were aware while 62.5% of the culprits gave economic reasons for their illicit activities.Keywords: poultry meat, meat purchases, meat sales, meat storage, meat marketing

МЕРЕЖЕВИЙ ПІДХІД ЯК ІНСТРУМЕНТ УДОСКОНАЛЕННЯ ЛАНЦЮГА СТВОРЕННЯ ВАРТОСТІ ПРОДУКЦІЇ ШВЕЙНОГО ПІДПРИЄМСТВА

Creating value chains for decades have been a common practice in the apparel industry with the aim to improve cost management. This approach involves building value chains in the sector of garment manufacturing as well as providing an opportunity analysis with regard to cost optimization for each link in the chain. Thus, cost optimization occurs through improving business processes within the enterprise. It is emphasized that the process of creating apparel value chains have traditionally been viewed locally, within a single company which has to consider market demand, carry out design and engineering works, deliver logistics support, manufacture, store and sell its products. However, in modern realia, value creation is greatly affected by garment manufacturers’ contractors, their partnership being the heart of building value into products. It is argued that the apparel product value, apart from clothing companies, is created by different legal entities, i.e. suppliers, outsourcers, external consultants and others. In turn, partner companies create their own value chains which closely resonate with apparel value chains. In addition, given the apparel industry dependence upon seasonal sales, fashion trends and other factors, the garment companies have to obtain information on consumers’ preferences. It has been proven that value creation is strongly influenced by the company relationships with their partners. With this in mind, it is proposed to apply a network approach to apparel value chains which is able to harmonize the interests of all stakeholders. The suggested model of the network approach assumes vertical integration with main suppliers, outsourcing of design and engineering services and gaining information from distributors who deal with end customers. This approach will contribute to cost optimization of garment manufacturing along with enhancing the product competitiveness.

Advertising and Pricing Policies in a Two-Echelon Supply Chain with a Capital-Constrained Retailer

We consider a two-echelon supply chain consisting of one supplier and one capital-constrained retailer. The supplier can offer the retailer trade credit to fund his orders. To boost sales, the retailer invests part or all of initial capital exclusively in advertising at the beginning of the sales season. Demand is sensitive to both retail price and advertising expenses of the retailer. With a wholesale price contract, we analytically derive the Stackelberg equilibrium with respect to pricing by both parties and advertising by the retailer. Our results show that the retailer with less initial capital prefers to invest full initial capital in advertising irrespective of the advertising elasticity or the interest rate charged by the supplier. The retailer with more initial capital only invests part of initial capital in advertising. The retailer’s advertising policy under different initial capital levels always benefits the supply chain and the supplier. We further identify the effects of the advertising elasticity and the interest rate on the pricing policies. Numerical simulations and sensitivity analysis are given to elaborate our theoretical results.

Responsive Pricing of Fashion Products: The Effects of Demand Learning and Strategic Consumer Behavior

This paper studies the potential benefits of responsive pricing and demand learning to sellers of seasonal fashion goods. As typical in such markets, demand uncertainty is high at the beginning of a season, but there is a potential opportunity to learn about demand via early sales observations. Additionally, although the consumers have general preference for purchasing a fashion product earlier rather than later in the season, they may exhibit strategic behavior—contemplating the benefits of postponing their purchase in anticipation of end-of-season discounts. Our results demonstrate that the benefits of responsive pricing, in comparison with a benchmark case of a fixed-price policy, depend sharply on the nature of the consumers’ behavior. Interestingly, in stark contrast to markets of myopic consumers, when the consumers are all strategic, the benefits of responsive pricing tend to worsen when there is a higher potential for learning. We explain this counterintuitive outcome by pointing to two phenomena: the spread effect and information shaping. For example, sellers of fashion products that consider upgrading their pricing systems to incorporate “accurate response” strategies (i.e., integrating learning and responsive pricing) should be aware of the possibility that such action might lead them to a new and potentially worse equilibrium, particularly when there is a higher opportunity to learn. Despite the fact that price commitment completely eliminates the seller’s ability to learn, it appears to increasingly dominate responsive pricing as the portion of strategic consumers in the market increases. But, although performing better than responsive pricing, a price-commitment policy is typically limited in performing effective discrimination. Finally, we studied the potential benefits of quick response strategies—ones that embed both dynamic pricing and quick inventory replenishment during the sales season—and found that they are particularly significant under strategic consumer behavior. We explain this result by arguing that quick response provides the seller with a real option that serves as an effective implicit threat to the consumers: encouraging them to buy earlier at premium prices rather than wait for discounts at the end of the season. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2018.3114 . This paper was accepted by Martin Lariviere, operations management.

Research on Trade Credit and Bank Credit Based on Dynamic Inventory

Trade credit is a short-term business financing based on purchases between the retailer and the supplier. This paper considers a supply chain consisting of a well-funded supplier and a capital-constrained retailer. At the beginning of each sales season, the retailer need to place an order from the supplier to meet the stochastic demand. The capital-constrained retailer determines the order quantity and whether to borrow loans from a bank or the supplier or just use its initial capital, according to its finance and stock status with the wholesale price provided by the supplier. We build the Stackelberg game with the supplier as the leader and divide the retailer’s initial inventory and capital into different wealth regions to discuss the optimal strategies of different wealth regions. We extend to the two-period dynamic financing model based on dynamic inventory and capital flow so as to obtain the optimal strategy matrix of the retailer and the supplier under bank and trade credit. Numerical results validate our theoretical analysis of bank credit and supplier credit with dynamic inventory under different period setting.

Organizational and economic mechanism of grain sales: information component

A significant part of the output of the agro-industrial complex of Ukraine is exported. Therefore, it is desirable to determine the optimal volume of products to be implemented each month. Prices for grain are formed depending on demand and supply, costs for production and sale, market fees, etc. The analysis of the price situation on the Ukrainian cities shows a large variation. The average price of 1 kg of grain crops does not give a full opportunity to characterize the price situation of the Ukrainian grain market. There is seasonal price cyclicality: their growth with the decrease of stocks and the reduction after harvesting, when mass sales of grain are carried out by producers who are not able to store the grown crops, and consumers make grain crops. In the article the solution of the economic-mathematical model of optimization of the calendar plan for the sale of agricultural products is developed and found. The model is considered from the standpoint of deterministic product prices and under the probabilistic nature of future market prices. The system of restrictions consists of two constraints: to determine the optimal size of grain crop harvesting of each type and the capacity of the warehouse. If future market prices are considered not deterministic, then the commodity producer always has the risk of receiving in the future revenue from the sale of products smaller than expected. A risk-averse person will be guided by two criteria when deciding to: maximize the expected total net income and minimize the dispersion of total net income. In this case, the model will be two-criterial and nonlinear. The method of supporting the process of determining the predominance of multi-criteria optimization is that the owner first of all has received information about the limits of the variation of the expected total net income and the standard deviation of income on the set of effective options for the calendar plan. The peculiarities of the individual attitude to risk are calculated by drawing information on the permissible levels of the indicated criterion. Further among all effective variants of the calendar plan of realization is calculated precisely the one that best reflects the individual predominance of the owner of the product. The following information is needed to construct a numerical model for grain sales: sales prices and the cost of storing 1 ton of grain crops to a certain month. The predicted values are based on a simple linear econometric model based on statistical sampling. The reliability of the econometric model is determined by the determination coefficient or on the basis of Fisher's F-criterion according to the theory of statistical hypotheses. Econometric models have weak extropolitic properties, so the forecast can be formed only short-term. The solution of the model showed: all kinds of grain crops, except for barley, are economically unprofitable to be implemented in such months as January, May, June, July and August. Wheat grades 3 and 6, corn is also unprofitable to be sold in September. Unlike other crops, barley is beneficial throughout the year. In February, the maximum sales of wheat is 2, 3 and 6 classes, in March the maximum sale of barley, and the minimum is in May. Maize has the maximum sales in May, and the minimum in September. The minimum sale of wheat depends on its class – September, April and December respectively 2, 3 and 6 classes. With such incomplete loading of warehouses, the profit from storage of grain crops will be 743 thousand. UAH. Thus, PJSC “Gnivan Grain Reciprocal Enterprise” is more likely to load its warehouses to improve its financial position. One of the ways of solving the problem of seasonal grain sales is to create a network of modern certified grain elevators, taking into account the logistically rational location, which will allow to keep enough grain in addition and of the proper quality. This will allow an increase in the efficiency of grain producers through the sale of grain at favorable market conditions in a wider range of time. Independent operators should also be encouraged to ensure that the quality of the grain is objectively measured. At present, the analysis of the work of the grain storage system shows that the high cost of services of active elevators is also a problem.

Impact of Loss-Aversion on a Financially-Constrained Supply Chain

Traditionally, in the area of production and operations management, the financial states and decision-makers’ behaviour regarding loss have been ignored in the supply chain, which may lead to infeasible or unrealistic practices or even catastrophic losses in practical supply chain operations. Therefore, this study aims to provide a model for operational efficiency in a financially constrained supply-chain system consisting of a financially deficient retailer, a supplier, and a bank, and to analyse the impact of the behaviour of the bank and the supplier on the operational decision. It is assumed that the bank provides a loan to the retailer considering the supplier’s credit guarantee for the retailer. The supplier’s credit guarantee implies that, if the retailer goes bankrupt after the sales season, then a pre-guaranteed proportion of the retailer’s loan is repaid by the supplier. Moreover, to capture the decision-makers’ behaviour regarding loss, it is assumed that the supplier and the bank are loss-averse in their risk preference on the final profit. Under this circumstance, it is intended to draw the theoretical implications by analysing a loss-averse behaviour model for a supplier and a bank, in which a kinked piecewise linear and concave utility function is considered. The optimal decision is analytically derived for the retailer (the optimal order quantity), the supplier (the optimal wholesale price), and the bank (the optimal interest rate). In addition, a sensitivity analysis is conducted to investigate how the model parameters affect the optimal decision for the retailer, the supplier, and the bank under different degrees of loss-aversion. The optimal decisions are shown to be highly affected by the degree of the loss-aversion coefficient of the bank and the supplier and to be more conservative than the result in the traditional case which optimises the risk-neutral expected profit (the unit degree of loss-aversion). The analytical results can be summarised as follows. First, as the wholesale price and the interest rate increase, the optimal order quantity decreases. Second, the more loss-averse the supplier is, the higher the optimal wholesale price that is offered to the retailer by the supplier. Third, the larger the credit guarantee that is provided to the retailer by the supplier, the higher the optimal wholesale price that is provided to the retailer. Fourth, the more loss-averse the bank is, the higher the interest rate that is offered to the retailer; and the larger the credit guarantee that is provided by the supplier, the lower the interest rate that is offered to the retailer.

Marketing mix strategy determinants in pork-based agri-businesses: Experiences from Zimbabwe

Orientation: Agri-businesses, especially at the farmer level, are devoid of sound marketing strategy. Research purpose: This study aimed to highlight the marketing mix elements most considered by pork-based agri-businesses. Motivation for the study: Zimbabwe underwent institutional transformation policies of land reform and indigenisation policies. New industry players came to the fore. However, they were devoid of sound business background. Research design, approach and method: The study utilised a questionnaire in a cross-sectional survey of 166 pig farmers, 6 pork processors and 24 pork butchers in Mashonaland Central province. Descriptive statistics, logistic regression and multiple linear regression were used to analyse the data. Main findings: Product, promotion, price and partnership were considered. Category of agri-business, distance the furthest buyer travelled, the merchandise handled and frequency of abattoir or processor buyers determined marketing mix strategy. Perceptive performance of the agri-businesses in terms of marketing mix strategy was determined by category of agri-business, merchandise consideration, frequency of abattoir or processor buyer, seasonality of sales and time of consideration when selling; agri-business location and the experience of the agri-business. Practical/managerial implications: The study concluded with the myopic use of marketing mix based strategies in the Zimbabwean agri-businesses, targeting product-based characteristics, with varying determinants. There is opportunity to strategically position where place, promotion and pricing advantages exist. Contribution/value-add: The study added to insights for marketing managers, especially in a structural transformation situation, what marketing strategies are mostly utilised. This tends to avail shortfalls and opportunities that can be taken advantage of, to strategically position pork agri-businesses in Zimbabwe.