The shipping strategies of internet retailers: Evidence from internet book retailing

Managing the shipment of goods to consumers is one of the central aspects of retail competition on the internet. In this article, we analyze internet retailers’ shipping strategies using data from the internet book retailing industry. We find that, controlling for a variety of observable firm characteristics, firms with lower product prices offer lower shipping fees and higher quality shipping in terms of average delivery time, compared to firms with higher product prices. These patterns cannot be readily reconciled with a large class of models of competition under perfect consumer information. Theories based on imperfect consumer information can explain the findings better.

浅谈网络环境下服装零售新模式及策略

作为代表未来贸易方式发展方向的一种新型商业模式,电子商务是在计算机技术、网络技术以及以数据库的基础上发展起来的。传统零售商开展电子商务面对的最重要问题往往是如何将线下的资产与电子商务进行整合,本文就传统服装零售业发展电子商务的新策略进行了探讨,分别对产品、价格、渠道及促销新策略进行分析总结。     

Store Manager–Store Performance Relationship: A Research Note

Despite the critical role that store managers play in linking top management teams and service/retail employees, as well as in fulfilling corporate strategy within chain store environments, service management research infrequently addresses the factors that may promote store managers’ effective exchange relationships within the firm and subsequent effects on store operations and profitability. This study focuses on how store managers’ performance orientation, trust of a regional manager’s capabilities, and organizational commitment affect a manager’s relationships relative to regional managers and frontline employees. The direct effect of store managers’ relationship capacity on store performance is also examined. The results, based on survey data from managers of stores of a retail and service chain and company financial reports, generally support the suggested hypotheses. Specifically, a store manager’s relationship with his/her supervisor has a strong influence on how the manager views the supervisor’s leadership support and leadership style, which ultimately influence store performance (primary goods/service sales and store profits).     

贸易与就业:国际研究的最新进展与政策导向——兼论化解中美贸易冲突对我国就业影响的政策选择

随着全球经济一体化的深化,由劳动力国际化带来的失业增加、工资不平等、青年失业人口增多、非正规部门就业提高等诸多问题,已引起国际社会关注,贸易与就业成为当代国际贸易研究的重要课题。国际最新研究显示,贸易既能创造就业,也会导致失业,其就业净效应取决于不同国家的不同情况。从短期和局部看,因存在就业调整成本,贸易对不同国家、地区和个人会产生不同的影响;但从长期和整体看,贸易会对一国产业结构优化、高技能工人就业、工资提高和妇女就业产生积极影响。贸易能否发挥对劳动力市场水平和结构的积极影响,取决于政府的决策。中美贸易冲突将对我国就业产生重要影响,稳就业是中央提出的应对国内外复杂形势的首要任务。为化解中美贸易冲突对我国就业的影响,应尽快建立中国贸易调整援助制度,发挥中国在构建开放型世界经济中的引领作用,并从财政政策、金融政策、贸易政策、教育政策、区域政策和劳动力政策等方面综合施策。     

Is online-to-offline customer care support essential for consumer service?

Customer satisfaction is the main pillar for convenient and profitable retailing. The retail sector continuously tried to develop new strategies to improve consumer satisfaction. It is impossible to provide each service directly to the consumer by the retailer. In this direction, the retailer establishes customer care to provide the best service to consumers. Consumer care can provide promotional or prevention services, increasing the consumer's satisfaction level. This study is developed to show the impact of retailers' customer care service for an offline-to-online retailing strategy. The demand is consumer support, advertisement, and selling price dependent. For maintaining consumer service, some free home delivery policies are offered, when consumers ordered more than a certain percentage of the amount. Finally, the total profit of this O2O retailing system is calculated by the classical optimization technique. Some special cases are discussed in the numerical section to prove the impact of customer care services. Numerical results prove that customer care support enhances the profit by 48.20%, whereas investment in the advertisement and home delivery strategy helps the retail industry to earn 44.80% and 16.74% more profit, respectively. Finally, from this study, it is clear that customer care activities are essential to increase the profit of the retailing sector.     

Value co-creation and social media: Investigating antecedents and influencing factors in the U.S. retail banking industry

This study seeks to examine and unearth antecedents to co-creation behaviours within a U.S. retail banking context. A critical aspect for marketing managers and academics alike, co-creation has a strong influence on tangible factors such as profit and intangible factors such as referrals, satisfaction and feedback. Antecedents were identified as trust, customer engagement and participation attitude whilst social media usage was a consumer characteristic identified as influencing co-creation. Data was collected from 489 U.S. retail banking customers via an online survey. The data was analysed via structural equation modelling. The findings indicate that customer engagement influences trust, co-creation and participation attitude. Participation attitude was found to influence trust and co-creation but trust had no direct effect on co-creation. The study further found that social media usage intensity influenced co-creation behaviours. The findings contribute in three ways. First, this is one of the first studies to scrutinise participation attitude in an attempt to explain co-creation behaviours for U.S. banks over social media. Second, identification of precursors to value co-creation has been ascertained in a U.S. retail banking social media context. Third, the study additionally contributes to the findings that social media usage has a moderating effect in value co-creation and offers a potential segmentation strategy.     

Exploring the representativeness of the M5 competition data

The main objective of the M5 competition, which focused on forecasting the hierarchical unit sales of Walmart, was to evaluate the accuracy and uncertainty of forecasting methods in the field to identify best practices and highlight their practical implications. However, can the findings of the M5 competition be generalized and exploited by retail firms to better support their decisions and operation? This depends on the extent to which M5 data is sufficiently similar to unit sales data of retailers operating in different regions selling different product types and considering different marketing strategies. To answer this question, we analyze the characteristics of the M5 time series and compare them with those of two grocery retailers, namely Corporación Favorita and a major Greek supermarket chain, using feature spaces. Our results suggest only minor discrepancies between the examined data sets, supporting the representativeness of the M5 data.     

Visual cues during shoppers’ journeys: An exploratory paper

The visual cues shoppers view at the point of purchase during the shopping process is vital to product selection and sales. We aimed to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic visual cues or touchpoints customers use to select a product (live plant) in retail stores. Eye-tracking technology (ETT) has enabled market researchers to conduct cost- and time-efficient studies. Few studies have been conducted in a retail setting to pinpoint how shoppers attend to visual cues in situ. Using ETT gave researchers insight into the cognitive processes leading to purchase. We recruited four retail greenhouses in Michigan to collaborate on the study, and researchers invited customers from the store’s email list to participate. Researchers used eye-tracking glasses to record eye movement during a <12-min shopping trip to purchase a $10 plant. We analyzed 150 useful videos to identify attention to marketing and non-marketing cues at the point of purchase (e.g., reading a sign, product interaction, cell phone use). Time spent in specific store areas (e.g., annuals, perennials, shrubs, etc.) was measured. For 67 shoppers who purchased an annual plant, we analyzed which cues and touchpoints influenced the shopping time spent. Results showed that the most frequently accessed cue/touchpoint was intrinsic: product interaction (looking at or touching a plant). Participants read, on average, 6.7 signs with price and 4.5 signs without price. Conversely, only 34% interacted with employees, and 19.4% used their cell phones. Building on this exploratory study, future research could investigate signage elements attracting attention and motivations for employee interaction and cell phone use.     

期望落差与互联网新创企业狙击型国际化——基于资源条件与市场环境二元情境视角

互联网新创企业国际化战略目标及实施路径独具特色，逐渐成为研究热点。以北京小桔科技有限公司为案例对象，基于业绩反馈理论和前景理论，构建“期望落差-二元情境-狙击型国际化”的研究框架，系统揭示互联网新创企业狙击型国际化行为及实现机制。研究发现：期望落差促使互联网新创企业实施狙击型国际化战略，资源条件与市场环境二元情境在其中具有调节作用，即在资源劣势-市场壁垒高情境下采取“组合拳”模式的狙击型国际化，在资源劣势-市场壁垒低情境下采取界内合作模式的狙击型国际化，在资源优势-市场壁垒高情境下采取跨界协作模式的狙击型国际化，在资源优势-市场壁垒低情境下采取市场控制模式的狙击型国际化。     

Cognitive foundations of firm internationalization: A systematic review and agenda for future research

Managerial cognition has a fundamental role in the internationalization of firms. However, there exists no coherent understanding of how prior research has examined and captured the cognitive foundations of internationalization. This paper provides a systematic review of this body of literature. The review identifies three main streams of research that, overall, consists of nine more specific research areas. We show that especially the areas addressing (1) managerial learning, (2) characteristics of upper echelons, (3) intra-organizational perceptions, and (4) external actors’ perceptions provide opportunities for the further advancement of internationalization literature. For harnessing these opportunities, we find that the microfoundational approach could support the empirical examination of the cognitive foundations and would notably contribute to the Uppsala model-based theorization of the firm internationalization process.