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This study empirically investigates whether and to what extent suppliers' decisions to start selling directly to end consumers provoke reactions in the ordering strategy of downstream channel partners, such as independent multibrand retailers. Using a multimethod approach that combines transactional data, survey data, and a scenario-based experiment, the authors demonstrate that retailers tend to exit these relationships after a direct channel introduction, as exhibited by their strategic decisions to order fewer distinct stockkeeping units (SKUs), accompanied by higher wholesale prices per unit. On average, retailers decrease the number of distinct SKUs ordered by 15 (or 18.75%) and pay a higher average wholesale price by €.79 (or 20.84%). Yet the responses also differ across retailers, reflecting moderating impacts of retailer power, expertise, and relationship quality. Retailer power emerges as a robust moderating factor, with more powerful retailers indicating a lower propensity to exit the relationship. Expertise and relationship quality have more nuanced influences on retailers' ordering strategies. The multimethod approach serves to reveal the underlying mechanisms of these moderating effects, such that both rational (coercive power and switching costs) and emotional (conflict and confidence) considerations are in play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the metaverse can offer a fusion of physical and virtual shopping experiences, there is no consensus on how multichannel retailers can capitalize on this trend by adopting extended reality (XR) online portals. Therefore, we seek to investigate the dynamic influence of XR adoption on offline store performance from the perspective of multichannel retailers. The current study also considers the boundary conditions of the XR type and offline store density. We examined 667 multichannel retailers, with data sources combining online and offline information from 2019 to 2022, resulting in 11,643 monthly retailer-level observations. Applying staggered difference-in-differences models reveals that XR adoption dynamically affects offline store transactions. Furthermore, the effects of XR vary across XR type and offline store density. We aim to provide management implications for multichannel retailers wishing to optimize their channel structures by adopting XR while jumping into the metaverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To provide consumers with a channel to interact directly with service retailers, some service platforms have allowed consumers to incentivize service retailers for better service via tipping. There are pros and cons of allowing and not allowing tipping in terms of service levels and costs, which can affect consumer utility and platform profitability. By developing a game-theoretic model, we analyze the tipping strategy choices of platforms under competition. We find that when the service ability of service retailers is high, platforms with service retailer pricing should allow tipping, whereas for at least one platform with platform pricing, they should allow it only when the commission rate is also high. Interestingly, if consumers are concerned about service levels in addition to service prices during tipping, for platforms with platform pricing, only one platform should allow tipping when the service ability is medium. However, when the service ability is low or when the sensitiveness of the service level to tips exceeds the threshold, neither platform should allow tipping, regardless of pricing models. Finally, an all-win outcome for service platforms, service retailers, and consumers may be achieved only when platforms adopt different pricing models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines sharing platform in the agricultural supply chain that serves as a direct link between farmers and consumers. We analyze the competition between the sharing platform and the retailer when they face two types of consumers (switchers and retailer-loyal consumers) based on whether they are loyal to the retailer. We investigate how the number of switchers and farmers' marginal costs affect the retailer's optimal pricing and profit. We first analyze the case of the sharing platform being a non-profit organization, where farmers pay no fee to use the platform. Our analysis reveals several interesting findings. First, the presence of the non-profit sharing platform will induce the retailer to reduce its equilibrium retail price, making it worse off; both consumers and farmers will become better off. Second, with more switchers in the market, the retailer will decrease its equilibrium retail price; the platform's equilibrium market-clearing price may increase or decrease. Moreover, farmers' marginal costs for high-type products have nonmonotonic effects on the firms' equilibrium prices. In an extension, we consider a for-profit platform, who charges farmers a percentage fee for sales. We find that a higher percentage fee by the for-profit sharing platform may reduce its profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between advertising and financing decisions in an online supply chain consisting of an e-platform and a capital-constrained retailer. The e-platform is the leader in a Stackelberg game, and the interaction is modelled in two advertising scenarios. The results indicate that advertising can reduce risk and is always beneficial, with an e-platform willing to support the retailer only when the former decides on the advertising level. When providing both advertising and financing services, the e-platform gains the ability to directly regulate the retailer's ordering decisions, thereby increasing its strategic flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past customer spending in a category is generally a positive signal of future customer spending. Analyses of historical data at two retailers demonstrate that there exist "canary categories" for which the reverse is true. Purchases in these categories are a signal that customers are less likely to return to that retailer. The authors propose an explanation for the existence of canary categories and then develop a stylized model that illustrates four contributing factors: the probability that a customer finds their favorite brand, customers' willingness to substitute brands, the cost and attractiveness of visiting other stores, and expectations about future brand availability. The analysis uses both field data and experiments to investigate these factors. The findings suggest that canary categories exist (at least in part) because store assortments are not completely adjusted to local preferences. An implication is that canary categories are endogenous to each retailer; the same category may be a canary category at one retailer and a destination category at a competing retailer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mishra and Raghunathan (2004) and Kim (2008) conducted a study on the same model but reached conflicting results on under what circumstances vendor-managed inventory (VMI) benefits the retailer as opposed to retailer-managed inventory (RMI) in a setting where two products are partially substitutable. However, we note that their conflicting results were due to different assumptions about unmet demand after product substitution, which is influenced by consumers response to retail stockouts. This paper then extends their studies by incorporating consumer response to retail stockouts and re-examining the impacts of VMI on the retailer's performance as well as on each manufacturer's. Therefore, this paper reconciles the conflicts in the existing scholarly work and provides a more complete understanding of when each supply chain member is better off with VMI than RMI in a two-product setting. Additionally, the incorporation of consumer response to retail stockouts sheds light on how product substitution and consumers' store loyalty affect the value of VMI to each supply chain member. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital retailing is omnipresent, such that shoppers increasingly interact with digital devices in physical stores. In service interactions involving the use of digital devices, shoppers attain novel forms of support, but they still need a means to achieve a sense of autonomy. To address this challenge, the current article reports on a qualitative analysis that reveals three main dimensions of phygital autonomy (visual, verbal, and kinetic) that relate to fundamental human senses and may enhance or undermine shoppers' perceived autonomy, due to their extension or restriction. By reviewing the concept of autonomy across distinct retail settings, this study also provides theoretical and practical insights for how to reconcile shoppers' autonomy dilemma, across their desires for freedom of action, freedom of choice, and human support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online retailers worldwide invest beyond their core business of retailing to offer their own delivery services (ODS) to deliver products to customers' homes through their own logistics network. How does this shift to ODS affect customers' behaviors and sales performance? When and why do retailers venture beyond their core competence to offer ODS? To explore these questions, the authors analyze 250,055 customer transactions over 10 years across 416 cities and 49 product categories from JD, a major online retailer in China. Using difference-in-differences models, causal mediation analysis, and the synthetic control method, they find that ODS increases customers' monthly spending by 7.8% and grows city-level sales by 11.9%. This study is the first to quantify the sales impact of ODS and shed light on when and why it works. The findings reveal that ODS has greater value for markets with lower trust levels, infrequent customers, high-risk product categories, and consumers who prefer the focal retailer (versus that of third-party sellers). Causal mediation analysis further reveals that ODS not only improves delivery quality but also builds customer trust, which together increase customers' monthly spending, purchase frequency, and the number of items ordered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The competition among Food & Beverage companies has substantially increased in today's age of digitization. Sales forecasting is one of their main challenges. Due to space limitations, employee shortages, and rising online demand, retail sales forecasting became extremely important for Food and Beverage companies. This research analyzed the sales data of a multinational Food & Beverage Company. It proposed a framework using Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) clustering, Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering (HAC), and Random Forest algorithm for forecasting sales. This model analyzes the impact of the weekends, holidays, promotional activities, customer sentiments, festivals, and socio-economic situations in sales data and is able to forecast sales ranging from one to 15 months. An investigation of the suggested model's performance compared to numerous cutting-edge sales forecasting techniques is carried out to show its efficacy. Here, we demonstrate that the proposed hybrid model surpasses current predicting and computing efficiency methods. The results of this study can help retail managers to allocate resources and manage inventories in well-informed ways. The findings suggest that combining many strategies may produce the most precise forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the value of due diligence recommendations on Reddit's Wallstreetbets (WSB) platform. Before the Gamestop (GME) short squeeze, recommendations are significant predictors of returns and cash-flow news. This predictability is eliminated post-GME. Post-GME, the fraction of reports emphasizing price-pressure or attention-grabbing stocks dramatically increases, and the decline in informativeness is concentrated in these reports. Similarly, retail trade informativeness is particularly strong following DD reports in the pre-GME period, but not post-GME. Our findings are consistent with the view that the Gamestop event altered the culture of WSB , leading to a deterioration in investment quality that adversely affected smaller investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the universal point scheme with multiple retailers and a platform that implements the points within a channel. First, we analysed the equilibriums of the channel under the decentralised control and the mode of lateral cost-sharing among retailers. We found that retailers are willing to set the lowest point conversion ratios under the lateral cost-sharing mode compared with the decentralised and centralised control modes. The optimal conversion ratio of a retailer under the decentralised control is greater than the one under the centralised control when the cost spillover and double marginalisation are not significant. Next, we extended the model by considering the participation of new retailer. In this dynamic channel, the impact of the cost spillover phenomenon on the channel members' preferences is discussed. Third, we showed that the wholesale price contract for point management used in the real world has a limitation in terms of profit split. Following this, we proposed a buyback contract and showed the optimal contract parameters under which the channel's profit could be maximised and arbitrarily split. The managerial insights we obtained shed light on how to design a universal point scheme and select channel members to achieve an all-win scenario. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common problem faced by contemporary retailers is consumers' tendency to avoid purchases that postpone or prevent cash flow for retailers, thus negatively affecting retailers' sales and profits. Little is known about the factors that drive consumers to avoid purchases or about marketing tactics that may reduce the tendency, especially from a cultural perspective. The authors attempt to fill this gap by exploring the role of an important cultural variable, namely, power distance belief (PDB), on consumers' tendency to avoid purchases. PDB is the extent to which people accept and endorse inequalities in society. A series of 14 studies (including 6 studies in the Web Appendix) using a variety of operationalizations of the key variables suggest that consumers high (vs. low) in PDB are less likely to avoid purchases (Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c) because they generally perceive greater constraints on their behavior (Study 2). These constraints are aversive, triggering the desire to overcome them and to have more as a compensatory mechanism, thereby reducing the tendency to avoid purchases. Accordingly, low (but not high) PDB consumers' tendency to forgo purchases is significantly decreased when they perceive greater constraints on their choices and decisions (Study 3) and when they experience a high social density (Study 4). However, high (but not low) PDB consumers' tendency to avoid purchases significantly increases when individuals perceive that constraints facilitate hierarchy (Study 5) or that constraints lead to positive outcomes (Study 6). Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Omnichannel retailers face the elusive challenge of maintaining customer patronage in the current competitive business environment. Drawing upon the flow theory and literature on omnichannel integration, this study investigated how different types of omnichannel integration (i.e. informational, transactional, and relational integration) influence customer patronage through the flow experience. Additionally, this study examined the potential moderating role of retailer-customer value congruence in the impact of omnichannel integration. We collected survey data from 292 omnichannel customers to test our research model. The results showed that the flow experience mediated the positive effects of transactional integration and relational integration on customer patronage. Additionally, value congruence positively moderated the effects of informational integration and relational integration on the flow experience. The implications and limitations of this study are further discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A key challenge in e-commerce retail is identifying a shipping fee policy that will incentivize more online orders and sales. To achieve this, retailers occasionally alter their shipping policies. While information systems research has extensively examined e-commerce channel strategies and their interplay with offline channels, it has yet to explore the online and offline implications of changes in e-commerce shipping policies. Against this backdrop, we studied a shipping policy change designed to incentivize higher-dollar orders, specifically, a large multichannel retailer's shift from a tiered online shipping policy to a flat-rate policy. Using rich customer-level panel data and a regression discontinuity in time approach, we demonstrate that a flat-fee online shipping policy, counterintuitively, shifts sales away from the online channel and toward the offline channel—generating 23% more offline sales across 21,028 customers in five states. Evidence from additional analyses corroborated an account based on two mechanisms: an online order aggregation effect, wherein flat-fee shipping encouraged shipping fee-sensitive shoppers to aggregate purchases into larger orders, and an offline store interpurchase effect, wherein order aggregation generated longer interpurchase periods, during which customers met their needs for smaller purchases by visiting offline stores. Thus, a flatrate shipping policy can serve as an unexpected lever for driving multichannel behavior. These findings contribute to the e-commerce channel interplay literature within information systems research and have important implications for legacy retailers seeking to leverage their brick-and-mortar investments to fend off competition from online-native retailers such as Amazon.com. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mid-twentieth century marks the proposed beginning of the Anthropocene, wherein human activities have irreversibly changed the environment, partly due to the accumulation of plastics from food packaging. Practice theories have contributed to understanding these activities, with some studies shifting the focus from isolated practices to the configurations they form to explain such significant social phenomena. This article uses the rise of packaging foods as an example to investigate how practices emerge as part of a configuration. Based on archival issues of the magazine Neue Verpackung (1948–1958)—pioneering magazine of the German packaging industry—I elaborate how the paradigm of rationalization orchestrated formerly separate practices toward converging and aligning, forming a configuration of densely interconnected and interdependent practices that eventually established food packaging as an essential component of transportation and retail sale. Insights into the emergence of a past configuration that remains relevant today can help transform current configurations, leading to the reduction of packaging waste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the welfare costs of urban traffic by considering its implications on consumer retail prices. Using retail price data for 40 goods and services from 70 cities (covering 47 countries) for multiple years, the estimation results suggest that the elasticity of retail prices with respect to the time spent in urban traffic is about 0.5. This elasticity is further connected to the welfare of consumers by using the implications of an economic model. The corresponding investigation shows that reducing the time spent in urban traffic by one minute improves consumer welfare by about 1.3% for the average city, with a range between 0.8% and 2.3% across cities. Several policy suggestions follow regarding how to reduce the time spent in urban traffic that would improve consumer welfare. • Urban traffic increases consumer retail prices. • Urban traffic reduces consumer welfare. • Policies reducing the time spent in traffic would improve consumer welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests the effect of different sales models on a conceptual model based on creativity theory, linking retail salespersons' functional and relational customer orientation to their performance. Salespersons' creativity and retailers' different sales models are considered to be mediating and moderating variables. We collected dyadic data from retail managers and salespeople across 177 retail companies in Brazil and used PLS-SEM to test the study's hypotheses. The results show that the moderation exerted by distinct sales models offered by a company contributes to the heightened prominence of creative salespersons operating in the retail sector, as they can adapt their sales strategies effectively. Furthermore, the results indicate that functional customer orientation negatively moderates the effect of relational customer orientation on creativity, which suggests that attempting to simultaneously implement both customer orientations is suboptimal in retail selling contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering two common dimensions of online reviews, number of reviews and rating, this paper investigates the impacts of online reviews on the firm's pricing and quality disclosure strategies when selling the product through an online platform's agency or resell scheme. By setting up a two-period model, we find that the first-period retail price decreases in the presence of online reviews and the degree of the first-period retail price cut is greater when consumers assign a higher weight to the number of reviews. However, the second-period retail price does not necessarily increase in the presence of reviews, depending on realized number of reviews and rating. The firm chooses to disclose its quality when the quality is above a threshold under two selling schemes, and the quality disclosure threshold decreases with the weight that consumers assign to the rating under the resell scheme, whereas it increases with the weight to the rating under the agency scheme. The existence of online reviews may stimulate or inhibit the firm's incentive to disclose product quality, depending on the consumer's weight on the two dimensions and the selling scheme. Finally, the firm and the platform come to an agreement on the agency scheme when the commission rate is relatively low, leading to a win–win scenario, and the win–win scenario is more likely associated with less quality information disclosure. We also consider the endogenous correlation between the rating and true product quality in the extension to check the robustness of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This research links the global advance of the franchise model to the geohistorical foray of shopping malls through an empirical longitudinal study in the largest emerging market in Latin America, Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: We conducted an analysis of a multi-year set of qualitative interviews with the same franchised mall tenants (23 interviews in 2017 and 12 follow-up interviews in 2022) via an iterative procedure of transcript data coding and theme identification. Findings: Shopping malls were key catalysts in the pre-pandemic growth of franchising in Brazil, yet during the pandemic, malls became liabilities. Attitudes towards malls as franchise hosts changed, flipping the mall perception from catalytic host to burdensome trap. Mall management companies, as key gatekeepers, deserve more research attention. Originality/value: Our study reveals the detrimental role shopping malls, with their static rules and high cost structures, have played as franchise businesses struggled to survive during the global pandemic. While franchising represents one of the most influential retail business models today, shopping malls have been among the most important brick-and-mortar retail institutions since the 1950s. Jointly, they constitute a unique retail symbiosis with little attention in the academic literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Textile and contemporary apparel manufacturers are adopting and integrating cutting-edge technologies to reduce their impact on the environment and gain an advantage in the marketplace. Most previous studies have ignored business intelligence systems (BIS), notably in the textile and apparel industry (T&A), in favor of looking at the larger picture of how big data would affect retail and distribution in a company. This is especially true for the T&As. Design/methodology/approach: The authors report that they conducted 14 semi-structured interviews with 12 international luxury tourism service providers. In this case, researchers use snowball features and systematic techniques to select participants. A qualitative content analysis strategy is used to capture the focus of the interviews. Findings: Problems with T&A company sustainability, opportunities to increase value creation via use of industry-leading business intelligence (BI) solutions and perceived roadblocks to BIS adoption were all found by the poll. Garment retail and distribution sector has benefited greatly from the increased use of Industry 4.0 technologies, especially those that provide better BI solutions. Determine the extent to which industry participation slows down or speeds up the process. The Company Information System (BIS) will help convince non-tech-savvy business owners of the financial, economic and environmental benefits of adopting certain technologies developed as part of the industry 4.0 movement. Research limitations/implications: The authors of this research claim theirs is one of the first to investigate what variables affect the uptake of BIS, ultimately hoping to find out how BIS may be used by T&A businesses to tackle environmental issues through the use of Industry 4.0 technologies. The purpose of this study was to see whether BIS might aid T&A firms with their sustainability issues. Practical implications: In the last several years, there has been a meteoric rise in interest in big data and business analytics among firms and educational institutions alike. This paper tries to introduce readers to the concept of business analytics in a way that is both academic and accessible, considering both the present and future of the field. This paper begins with a quick introduction, followed by a summary of the three distinct forms of predictive modeling discussed. Originality/value: In an effort to help aspiring analytics professionals, they have identified, categorized and evaluated the nine distinct players that are now active in the analytics market. Following this, they will provide a high-level summary of the many different research projects currently being worked on by their group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The asset management industry is dealing with a variety of challenges, ranging from difficult market conditions, higher operating costs, declining fees, intensifying competition from passive funds, right through to the introduction of new and complex regulations. At the same time, asset managers are also looking for innovative ways to diversify their businesses, either by launching private fund strategies aimed at the retail market or integrating environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards into their decision-making processes, to name just a few. All these dynamics are forcing asset managers to rethink their historic operating models. If companies are to adapt, however, then they will need access to excellent data. The problem is that many asset managers do not possess this data themselves, or if they do, it is often unstructured and unusable. This is where their global custodians are well positioned to help them. With many global custodians sitting on mountains of data, leading providers are now sanitising this information and turning it into useful insights and analytics for their institutional clients. From this, asset managers will be able to enhance their asset allocation processes, streamline operations, better comply with regulations and ESG requirements and bolster their retail distribution capabilities. In today's highly crowded market, the ability to successfully make use of data could be the difference between winning and losing lucrative mandates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Review of: Crafting Luxury: Craftsmanship, Manufacture, Technology and the Retail Environment, Mark Bloomfield, Shaun Borstrock, Silvio Carta and Veronica Manlow (2022) Bristol: Intellect Ltd., 187 pp., ISBN 978-1-78938-580-9, p/bk, $45.00 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We establish a long-term dynamic Stackelberg game model based on dual-channel retailing, taking into account the manufacturer's dynamic quality decision-making. The model involves a manufacturer who has a self-built online platform and a retailer, and the complex characteristics of the system when the manufacturer makes dynamic quality decision-making are explored. We further analyze the supply chain system by exploring the stable region, global bifurcation and multistability of the dynamic system, the bifurcation diagrams, 3D-profit diagrams, and consumer utility. The conclusions are as follows: (1) There are local steady and multisteady states in the dynamic system, and the adjustment parameters of all decision variables should be kept within an appropriate range to figure out the dynamic evolutionary orbits and reduce the uncertainty. (2) The development of the supply chain is hampered by excessive channel rivalry. (3) The market-dominant manufacturer must strike a balance between product quality and the self-built online platform's business focus. (4) While a chaotic condition of the system might lead to greater efficiency for supply chain participants, major disruptions to supply chain operations can also result from market uncertainty. (5) The chaotic behavior can be effectively controlled using the delay feedback control method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the projected solar and wind capacity additions around the world, we model the energy procurement decision of a load serving entity (LSE) faced with alternatives of solar power purchase agreements (PPAs), wind PPAs, non-renewable energy forward contracts, and spot energy purchases in a wholesale electricity market with uncertain prices. Using a pseudo-data sample of over one million observations, we estimate a translog cost function to find that the LSE's own-price elasticity estimates range from −1.87 for nighttime spot MWh demands to −13.1 for forward MWh demands. MWh demands are influenced by solar and wind capacity factors, daytime and nighttime retail sales, and spot energy price forecasts. The LSE's optimal procurement of solar capacity is roughly twice the wind capacity, corroborating the ratios of projected solar and wind capacity additions in regions around the world. If the LSE's existing energy mix is nearly all renewable, it becomes carbon-free when solar and wind power purchase agreements have declining energy prices or when forward energy price and spot energy price forecasts increase over time. These results imply that piecemeal policy measures can have conflicting outcomes, calling for integrated resource planning under wholesale market competition and price uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the deepening of power market reform and the increasingly fierce competition in the power market, the accurate prediction of electricity price has become an important demand for power market participants to make scientific decisions, optimize resource allocation, and reduce risks. Electricity price forecast can provide a key reference for the power market, help market participants make wise decisions, promote competition and efficient operation and cope with complex market fluctuations, provide a scientific basis for various entities to optimize resource allocation, reduce risks and improve benefits, and promote the sustainable development of the power industry. This study presents a dynamic retail price prediction method for smart grid based on the Stackelberg game model. Firstly, the correlation test is used to verify the strong correlation between electric load and electricity price. Secondly, the parameters of the Stackelberg model are determined, and the load and electricity price are tested using the white noise test. Finally, by comparing the BP neural network model and quantifying the model parameters, the superiority of the model is verified. The results show that the Stackelberg game model has higher prediction accuracy than the BP neural network model in electricity price prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The internet has revolutionised retail sales, with online shopping a common practice globally. While convenient, offenders have also embraced the opportunity to target potential victims and their shopping carts. Online shopping fraud occurs when offenders represent themselves as legitimate online sellers to gain sales from unsuspecting victims, both by impersonating genuine retailers and creating fictional retailers with non-existent products. The current article explores the victimisation and near misses of consumers to online shopping fraud. Based on survey responses of 1011 Australians, the article examines the online shopping activities of individuals as well as any victimisation or near miss experiences. The results indicate a high level of victimisation and near misses across this sample. It further examines a range of impacts experienced by these consumers and considers the implications of these results for the retail sector and prevention practices into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic Learning-to-Rank (DLTR) is a method of updating a ranking policy in real time based on user feedback, which may not always be accurate. Although previous DLTR work has achieved fair and unbiased DLTR under inaccurate feedback, they face the tradeoff between fairness and user utility and also have limitations in the setting of feeding items. Existing DLTR works improve ranking utility by eliminating bias from inaccurate feedback on observed items, but the impact of another pervasive form of inaccurate feedback, overlooked or ignored interesting items, remains unclear. For example, users may browse the rankings too quickly to catch interesting items or miss interesting items because the snippets are not optimized enough. This phenomenon raises two questions: (i) Will overlooked interesting items affect the ranking results? and (ii) Is it possible to improve utility without sacrificing fairness if these effects are eliminated? These questions are particularly relevant for small and medium-sized retailers who are just starting out and may have limited data, leading to the use of inaccurate feedback to update their models. In this article, we find that inaccurate feedback in the form of overlooked interesting items has a negative impact on DLTR performance in terms of utility. To address this, we treat the overlooked interesting items as noise and propose a novel DLTR method, the Co-teaching Rank (CoTeR), that has good utility and fairness performance when inaccurate feedback is present in the form of overlooked interesting items. Our solution incorporates a co-teaching-based component with a customized loss function and data sampling strategy, as well as a mean pooling strategy to further accommodate newly added products without historical data. Through experiments, we demonstrate that CoTeR not only enhances utilities but also preserves ranking fairness and can smoothly handle newly introduced items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growing interest and government efforts to promote organic food in Malaysia, widespread acceptance is hampered by socio-economic limitations, high prices, and limited availability. Furthermore, the slow expansion of the organic retail market is worsened by a lack of consumer information, misunderstandings about the benefits, and inadequate regional production to fulfil demand. This study aims to examine consumer behavior and purchasing habits regarding organic food. A total of 315 participants in Johor, Malaysia, took part in a quantitative survey, which revealed significant differences in organic food preferences, buying frequency, sources of information, and desired characteristics. These results suggest that Malaysian organic food retailers enhance their business practices by diversifying their products, targeted marketing, and focusing on quality, pricing, eco-friendly labeling, and sustainable packaging. This research closes the divide between current offerings and consumer preferences, ultimately contributing to the growth of the Malaysian organic food retail sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the elements of logistics to frame a sustainable model that serves as a lens through which the green purchasing power of global clicks and bricks grocery retailers can be used as a catalyst for suppliers' compliance to environmental standards. An exploratory systematic literature review was used to purposefully select ten (10) different product lines, based on their significant financial flows, high frequency of purchase, significant environmental impact, source of production, and potential for data access. It was discovered that the product lines across the logistic elements are associated with varying degrees of environmental emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In contemporary urban contexts, retail establishments have emerged as essential components of city life, engaging in fierce competition to capture consumer attention and augment their financial gains. Implementing a price promotion strategy is essential for efficaciously appealing customers. Nonetheless, the complex interaction between consumer preferences and product attributes, particularly in environments characterized by competitive product offerings, complicates the development of effective promotional strategies. This paper aims to present an agent-based simulation model for capturing the results of strategic approaches for retails offering competitive products, thereby sidestepping the need for empirical testing or data collection in real-world settings. In this model, consumer decision-making processes are initially influenced by two primary factors: the effectiveness of advertising and the impact of word-of-mouth communication. Subsequent decisions are then depending on the degree of price reduction encountered in-store. The simulation assesses various promotional tactics, examining the depth of price reductions, the frequency and timing of promotions, and the resultant impact on store profitability. The outcomes reveal that distinct strategies yield varying levels of effectiveness depending on the price elasticity of products. Moreover, non-overlapping promotional happenings yield superior profit margins as compared to concurrent promotions. The insights garnered from this study are anticipated to provide helpful guidance for future strategic planning for retails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]