A tactical retreat? Conceptualising the dynamics of European grocery retail divestment from East Asia

The internationalisation of the firm is a highly dynamic process, in which periods of investment and expansion intermingle with periods of divestment and retrenchment. Academic research to date has focused on identifying the reasons for and the processes of divestment. Empirical studies either evidence generic pressures or provide case studies of specific incidents. There few longitudinal studies of international divestment, consequently the dynamic interactions between host market, home market and firm level factors, and how the institutional context changes over time is underplayed. This paper seeks to rectify this gap in our understanding.We explore the rationale and evolving dynamics of European grocery retail divestment in East Asia over a thirty year period. Taking an inductive approach and drawing on analysis of contemporary narratives drawn from company documentation, trade journals, newsfeeds and market reports, three phases can be identified characterised by specific factors and combinations of factors which intersect to provide the key pressures and stimuli for divestment. We conclude that at different time periods, different internal and external contextual influences manifest themselves through different priorities within the firm’s strategy – marked by a switch from local (host) market, to regional, to global firm-centric considerations. Longitudinal analyses allow a greater recognition of this dynamic interplay of factors, and the changes in these relationships, and provides a more nuanced understanding of the international divestment process.     

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.     

Using word of mouth data from social media to identify asymmetric competition in food retailing

Competition between food retailers is often assumed to be asymmetrical, whereby one retailer may compete with another retailer but not vice versa. Little is known about how (a)symmetric competition among retailers currently is. One way to investigate this is to use word of mouth data. A mixed methods analysis of customer comments on social media confirms the existence of asymmetric competition among German food retailers, mainly between supermarkets and discounters. Overall, consumers compare competitors frequently on the basis of their assortments, the price-performance ratio as well as quality and freshness. The results have implications for competition policy and strategic management.     

The Cinderella moment: Exploring consumers' motivations to engage with renting as collaborative luxury consumption mode

Past literature argued that the purchase of luxury goods is driven by people's motivation to conform or fit into our economic and social system. In this study, the authors focus on a new aspect of consumption, that is, renting instead of purchasing luxury goods, backed by the emerging opportunities of sharing economy platforms. Drawing upon the analysis of spontaneous consumers' online communications (in the form of tweets), this study aims to investigate the motivations to engage with luxury garment renting within a collaborative consumption context. To this end, a series of automatic content analyses, via two studies, were conducted using the tweets posted with respect to the Run the Runway collaborative consumption platform. Results demonstrate consumers' increased willingness to show their social status through renting rather than owning luxurious apparel based on five main motivators (need to wear new clothes for a special event, inspirations created by the products/brands, possibility to explore a new way of consuming luxury goods, need to make more sustainable choices, and to increase the life cycle of each luxury product). The implications of these findings are discussed, while they pave the way for future research in collaborative consumption of luxury retailing.     

Forecasting artificial intelligence on online customer assistance: Evidence from chatbot patents analysis

The main goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the actual progresses in artificial intelligence, with emphasis on chatbots as emerging forms of customer assistance in online retailing. Drawing upon an analysis of the chatbot patents in the past 20 years, our findings show the increasing technology push towards the adoption of new conversational agents based on natural language. Findings also highlight the extent to which the research and development efforts are attempting to improve artificial intelligence systems that characterize chatbots. To this end, technology advancements are mainly focusing on: (i) improving chatbot ability to automatically draw inferences on users starting from multiple data sources, and (ii) using consumers’ knowledge adaptively to provide more customized solutions. Finally, results show the tight relationship between the digital assistants’ analytical skills and their ability to automatically interact with the users.     

What motivates customers to shop in smart shops? The impacts of smart technology and technology readiness

With the rapid diffusion of smart technologies, a new retail mode, the smart shop, has received increasing attention from both academia and practitioners in the 5G era. However, previous studies on smart shops have largely focused on the effects of smart technologies on technology adoption rather than customer shopping behaviors. To fill this gap, this study applies the hedonic information systems acceptance model (HISAM) to identify the utilitarian and hedonic motivations affecting consumer shopping intention. In addition, we characterize a second-order formative construct, technology readiness, as a technology-related personality to test its moderating role in the research model in the marketing context when consumer behaviors may differ due to individual characteristics. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we applied SmartPLS 3.2.8 to analyze 298 valid samples. The results show that perceived ease of use significantly affects perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment, in turn, these three factors directly influence shopping intention. Additionally, perceived ease of use will have a stronger impact on perceived usefulness and shopping intention when the customer has a high level of technology readiness. Finally, theoretical and practical suggestions and future research directions are also discussed.     

Exploring Point of Sale Strategies for Improving Seafood Retailing: The Case of the Australian Oyster Industry

The commodification of many food products, combined with increasing market share of supermarkets, has increased the importance of point of sale (POS) strategies in specialty food retailers such as fishmongers. This study seeks to develop strategies to improve the retailing of seafood in fishmongers, specifically oysters, an underutilized species; although they are eaten by many consumers, purchase frequency is low. A literature review identifies the key drivers and barriers to oyster consumption and the information consumers want at POS. Based on these findings, a retailing strategy is developed and tested in two consumer focus groups with results informing revisions to the recommended retail strategy, importantly including a change in collateral from a production focus to a consumption focus. This study contributes to theory and practice by bringing together the existing literature on drivers and barriers and consumer information requirements about oysters to develop and to test practical retail strategy concepts.     

Consumer satisfaction in retail stores: theory and implications

The substitution of small retail stores by the large stores has been a topic of debate among academics, practitioners, retailers and general public, especially in the context of foreign firms entering emerging markets such as China and India. The purpose of this research is to find out the determinants of consumer satisfaction in small and large retail stores in an emerging market, with a sample from India. Data were collected using a 39‐item structured questionnaire developed by the authors. The sample consists of 225 consumers who shop at retail outlets (Convenience sample of 125 consumers from small and 100 consumers from large stores respectively). Exploratory factor analysis grouped the 39 variables into 14 factors. Further, regression analysis revealed that six of the factors (Social desirability, staff friendliness, shopping economy, shopping ambience, family shopping and deal proneness) were major predictors of consumer satisfaction as they were found to be significant at 5% level. The significance of factors such as social desirability and staff friendliness imply that many consumers prefer those typical features of small stores, which in turn results in the likely coexistence of small retail formats in spite of the entry and proliferation of large retail stores from different countries. We posit three theoretical propositions to stimulate further research in this area.     

Exploring brand identity and entrepreneurship as drivers of small specialist retailer internationalisation: a German case study

While the comparatively sparse literature on small specialist retailing typically supports a proactive interpretation of the drivers of retail internationalisation, a more differentiated picture exists with regard to understanding the role of the brand construct in this process. The wider marketing literature recognises that brand identity, as well as brand image, can inform the process of internationalisation; yet, research focusing on small specialist retail internationalisation remains underdeveloped in this regard. Neither the notion of a multi-faceted brand concept nor its function as a strategic device in the internationalisation process has been analysed with sufficient depth. Furthermore, a better understanding of how and to what extent brand identity is interdependent upon the characteristics and activities of the entrepreneur is yet to emerge. This paper explores the construct of brand identity and its role within small specialist retail internationalisation, and the related influence of the entrepreneur on the internationalisation process. A case study approach is adopted, examining one German small specialist retailer. Data collection involved semi-structured interviews with owner-managers and other senior management, an assessment of company documentation as well as participant observation, providing in-depth insights into distinctive internationalisation patterns. The study finds that a simple ‘either-or’ approach, in terms of characterising the retailer’s motivation to internationalisation as being either reactive or proactive, is inadequate in understanding this particular case. Whilst initial motivation was characterised as being reactive, the motivations underpinning further planned internationalisation are determined to be more proactive. More particularly, analysis reveals how brand identity is considered to play an important role in the internationalisation of the case study retailer, and highlights the numerous ways in which the characteristics and activities of the entrepreneurial owner-managers impact the firm’s internationalisation. This research contributes to retail and management research concerning SME internationalisation as well as to the retail branding literature.     

电子商务对贸易发展影响的机制研究

电子商务的兴起对国内外贸易产生了重大影响,传统贸易的组织、业态和经营方式都受到冲击,新的电子商务模式则欣欣向荣。电子商务为什么会对贸易产生颠覆性的影响,它是通过怎样的机理和传导机制改变零售业、批发业和国际贸易的,文章对此进行了研究,从六个方面分析了电子商务对贸易发展的影响机制,并据此引申出电子商务导致的贸易理论创新。