Leisure Shopping Behavior and Recreational Retailing:A Symbiotic Analysis of Marketplace Strategy and Consumer Response

Consumers often benefit from increased competition in differentiated product settings during leisure shopping season. The wide choice, atmosphere, convenience, sales people, refreshments, location, promotional activities and merchandising policy are associated during the leisure shopping. The consumer shopping behavior during leisure is largely driven by the recreational infrastructure as a competitive strategy of retailers. This also helps developing store loyalty, innovative concern and the high perceived customer values whereby individuals experience enjoyment from shopping. This paper aims to analyze through an empirical investigation in Mexico, drivers which influence consumers’ leisure shopping behavior and measure customer value in terms of levels of satisfaction. The study also focuses on the role of in-store recreational infrastructure and retail selling strategies in swaying the leisure shopping and driving store loyalty.Recreational retailing, shopping behavior, store loyalty, customer value, production attractiveness, brand variability

Consumer Culture and Purchase Intentions towards Fashion Apparel

This study examines the effectiveness of different fashion marketing strategies and analyzes of the consumer behavior in a cross-section of demographic settings in reference to fashion apparel retailing. This paper also discusses the marketing competencies of fashion apparel brands and retailers in reference to brand image, promotions, and externalmarket knowledge. The study examines the determinants of consumer behavior and their impact on purchase intentions towards fashion apparel. The results reveal that sociocultural and personality related factors induce the purchase intentions among consumers. One of the contributions that this research extends is the debate about the converging economic, cognitive and brand related factors to induce purchase intentions. Fashion loving consumers typically patronage multi-channel retail outlets, designer brands, and invest time and cost towards an advantageous product search. The results of the study show a positive effect of store and brand preferences on developing purchase intentions for fashion apparel among consumers.Consumer behavior, purchase intention, socio-cultural values, designer brands, store brands, fashion apparel, brand promotion, personalization, fashion retailing, psychographic drivers

Advertising and competition in theory practice and public policy

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This study analyses and compares the theories relating to advertising and competition in economics literature with their operation in the market-place, and with the attitudes and pronouncements of public policy towards advertising and competition. A survey of the main literature in economic theory concerned with advertising and competition includes the theory of value, the theory of the firm, and theories and empirical studies on the effects of advertising and imperfect competition on prices, profits, barriers to entry and product differentiation. Since no general agreement exists on these theories and research, the review is interspersed with criticisms which have been made about specific features of them, and also a short outline of alternative theories which are considered to give a more accurate account of the behaviour of firms in the real world. Consumer behaviour in the market is then studied from three viewpoints: a summary of the major academic theories of consumer behaviour; the results of some empirical research into consumer behaviour; and eight case histories of products and services which show how products are developed and introduced on the market. Finally, the economic theories are compared with the results of the empirical research and the case histories. The theory and practice of advertising and competition is then compared with extracts from the reports of public bodies to illustrate the attitude of public policy towards advertising and competition. The conclusions draw attention to the major discrepancies which appear to exist between theory and practice, and the implications that follow for public policy which seems to be predominantly based on the theory of the firm and the need to eliminate imperfections in the market such as product differentiation, advertising and non-price competition

Human Resource Management and Productivity

In this chapter we examine the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and productivity. HRM includes incentive pay (individual and group) as well as many nonpay aspects of the employment relationship such as matching (hiring and firing) and work organization (e.g. teams, autonomy). We place HRM more generally within the literature on management practices and productivity. We start with some facts on levels and trends of both HRM and productivity and the main economic theories of HRM. We look at some of the determinants of HRM - risk, competition, ownership and regulation. The largest section analyses the impact of HRM on productivity emphasizing issues of methodology, data and results (from micro-econometric studies). We conclude briefly with suggestions of avenues for future frontier work.human resource management, productivity, personnel economics

An Empirical Investigation of the Existence and Causes of Noticeable Price Difference in Multi-Channel Retailers

Pricing strategy is one of the greatest difficulties facing multi-channel retailers (Gupta, Ting & Tiwari, 2019) as many retailers have switched to a multiple channel system (Ailawadi & Farris, 2017). Retailers are using their price strategies to encourage consumers to use either online or offline channels. Therefore, in many cases retailers want consumers to notice the price difference between channels. However, in some circumstances, retailers do not want consumers to notice the differentiation. Therefore, this thesis will answer two main research questions: How should optimal pricing be set for multiple channels that will make consumers more/less likely to notice price differentiation? What types of price presentation format are more/less likely to make consumers notice price differentiation? Prior investigations have studied noticeable price differences by using differential price thresholds in a single channel (e.g., Cheng & Monroe, 2013a; Sirvanci, 1993) rather than studying differential price thresholds for a single product when there is one retailer and two channels. Multi-channel retailers use different monetary and non-monetary promotions as price presentation formats. Previous researchers have studied the roles of monetary and non-monetary promotions in the price-framing effect. However, so far no study has investigated the price effect of different promotion presentation formats on noticing differentiation. This thesis integrates just noticeable difference theory and prospect theory to investigate consumers’ ability to notice price differentiation in different price presentation formats. It does so by conducting two experimental studies, each with 720 participants. It investigates the antecedent factors that influence the noticing of price differentiation in multiple channels. The results of the thesis have important implications for the multi-channel literature and for managerial practice. They show that consumers are more likely to notice price differentiation when the difference between the (online and offline) regular prices is 20%. The results also suggest that there is a difference in noticing price differentiation in different monetary promotional formats. The thesis can guide marketing managers to set optimal prices for single products when there is one retailer and two channels. They can decide whether to use the same price in both channels or different prices in the different channels depending on whether their strategy is to attract consumers and increase purchase intentions by making the price difference noticeable or not

Communication plan of Sonae Sierra´s gift card surprise

JEL: M30, M31, M37, M39The purpose of this master's thesis was the development of a Communication Plan for the Surprise Gift Card, a product that will soon be launched by the Sonae Sierra Company. After a thorough evaluation of the financial trends of the Gift Vouchers sales (B2B and B2C), the company found that it was necessary to replace the current voucher for the card format and, at this moment, it is in development the future Surprise Gift Card (B2C model). With respect to the product Surprise, it is facing a problem of seasonality and its degree of notoriety in the market is very low compared with other competitors. Given this situation, this present communication plan will have two main objectives: to enhance brand awareness and increase purchase intention of the brand in the target audience. To support the plan it was necessary to conduct a profound analysis of the external and internal environment to the product Surprise, using primary and secondary data, which allowed reaching a set of insights and conclusions. Therefore, the Surprise Gift Card communication plan drawn up for one year, consisted of a large range of promotional activities and brand activations, as well as, in combining different communication tools in order to create an integrated and effective plan, taking into account the proposed goals.O propósito desta tese de mestrado consistiu no desenvolvimento de um Plano de Comunicação para o Cartão Presente Surprise, um produto que brevemente será lançado pela empresa Sonae Sierra. Na sequência de uma profunda análise das vendas do negócio dos Cheques-Prenda (B2B e B2C), a empresa considerou necessário proceder à substituição do atual cheque-prenda para o formato cartão e, neste momento encontra-se em desenvolvimento o futuro Cartão Presente Surprise (modelo B2C). No que diz respeito ao produto Surprise, o mesmo depara-se com um problema de sazonalidade, além de que o seu grau notoriedade no mercado é muito baixo, comparativamente com outros concorrentes. Perante esta situação, o presente plano de comunicação terá dois principais objetivos: aumentar o reconhecimento da marca e aumentar a intenção de compra da marca por parte da audiência alvo. Para suportar o plano foi necessário proceder a uma profunda análise do ambiente externo e interno ao produto Surprise, utilizando dados primários e secundários, que permitiram chegar a um conjunto de perceções (insights) e conclusões. Deste modo, o plano de comunicação elaborado para o Cartão Presente Surprise durante um ano, consistiu numa diversificação de ações promocionais e ativações de marca, bem como na combinação das diferentes ferramentas de comunicação de forma a criar um plano integrado e eficaz, tendo em conta os objetivos propostos

Optimizing Consumer-Centric Assortment Planning under Cross-Selling Effects

Central to modern-time, consumer-focused retailing is the ability to provide attractive and reasonably-priced product assortments for different customer profiles. To this end, retailers can benefit from the use of data analytics in order to identify distinct customer segments, each characterized by their buying power, shopping behavior, and preferences. Further, retailers can also benefit from a careful examination of alternative procurement options and cost levers associated with products that are considered for inclusion in the assortment. Issues of assortment planning lie at the interface of operations and marketing. Profitable planning trade-offs can be identified using an optimization methodology and are simultaneously driven by consumer preferences and supply cost considerations. This dissertation proposes and investigates novel, integrated optimization models for assortment planning with the following overarching objectives: (i) To reveal insights into assortment decisions under product substitutability or complementarity and multiple customer segments; (ii) to improve the computational tractability of (nonlinear discrete) optimization models that arise in such contexts and to demonstrate their efficacy for large-scale data instances. In the first essay, we investigate the joint optimization of assortment and pricing decisions for complementary retail categories with relatively popular products having high and stable sales volumes, such as fast-moving consumer goods. Each category comprises substitutable items (e.g., different coffee brands) and the categories are related by cross-selling considerations that are empirically observed in marketing studies to be asymmetric in nature. That is, a subset of customers who purchase a product from a primary category (e.g., coffee) can typically opt to also buy from one or several complementary categories (e.g., sugar and/or coffee creamer). We propose a mixed-integer nonlinear program that maximizes the retailer\u27s profit by jointly optimizing assortment and pricing decisions for multiple categories using a deterministic maximum-surplus consumer choice model. A linear mixed-integer reformulation is developed, which effectively enables an exact solution to large, industry-sized problem instances using commercial optimization solvers. Our computational study indicates that overlooking cross-selling between retail categories can result in substantial profit losses, suboptimal (narrower) assortments, and inadequate prices. The demonstrated tractability of the proposed model paves the way for store-wide optimization of categories that exhibit significant complementarity, which retailers can infer from market basket analysis. The second essay addresses an assortment packing problem where a decision maker optimizes the assortment and release times of products that belong to different categories over a multi-period planning horizon. Products in a same category are substitutable, whereas products across categories may exhibit complementarity relationships. All products have a longevity over which their attractiveness gradually decays (e.g., electronics or fashion products), while being positively or negatively impacted by the specific mix of substitutable or complementary products that the retailer has introduced. Our proposed 0-1 fractional program employs an attraction demand model and subsumes recent assortment packing models in the literature. We highlight the effect of overlooking cross-selling and cannibalization on the profit using an illustrative example. We develop linearized reformulation that afford exact solutions to small-sized problem instances. Furthermore, a linear programming-based heuristic approach is devised and is demonstrated to yield near-optimal solutions for large-scale computationally challenging problem instances in manageable times. Model extensions are discussed, especially in the context of the movie industry where exhibitors have to decide on the assortment of movies to display and their optimal display times

A Framework for Social Responsible Retailing (SRR) Business Practices

The role of retailers in the practice of social responsible initiatives has been overlooked in the literature. This paper develops a framework for analysis of Social Responsible Retailing (SRR) by focusing on retailing business practices across the supply chain to the end consumer and among the internal and external stakeholders of the retail landscape. The framework is presented as a starting point to develop the concept of SRR and focuses on the potential role retailers can play in developing and coordinating social responsible business practice

Pingo Doce zero waste shop

The idea presented in this business plan intends to address a gap in the food and distribution market. After a preliminary market analysis, it was discovered that there is no zero waste option offered in Portugal as a supermarket concept. Zero Waste is a growing concept, a lifestyle even, that is becoming increasingly popular. Several stores have been opening around the world with the main purpose of decreasing food and plastic waste in the groceries buying process. However, in Portugal, there are no big store brands applying it as its focus point. The project consists in the development of a pilot store utilising Pingo Doce’s brand, becoming the first big store brand offering a complete zero waste supermarket. To complete this task, a business model was developed as well as its implementation strategy. A financial plan was also created, where three scenarios were evaluated with the objective of comparing possible levels of success. In the end, the project developed proved its economic viability, indicating that it would be a project worthy of investment.A ideia apresentada neste plano de negócios pretende suprimir uma lacuna no mercado de distribuição alimentar. Após uma análise de mercado preliminar, descobriu-se que não existe uma opção onde o conceito Zero Waste seja oferecido num formato de supermercado, em Portugal. Zero Waste é um conceito em crescimento, um estilo de vida, que se está a tornar cada vez mais popular. Diversas lojas por todo o mundo têm-se desenvolvido com o principal objetivo de diminuir o desperdício alimentar e de plásticos no processo de compra de bens essenciais. No entanto, em Portugal, não existem grandes marcas que o apliquem como principal foco. O projeto consiste no desenvolvimento de uma loja-piloto com a marca Pingo Doce, tornando-se, assim, na primeira grande marca com um supermercado a aplicar o conceito. Para cumprir esta tarefa, foi desenvolvido um modelo de negócio, bem como a sua estratégia de implementação. Foi, também, elaborado um plano financeiro onde foram avaliados três cenários com o objetivo de comparar possíveis níveis de sucesso. No final, o projeto desenvolvido comprovou a sua viabilidade económica, indicando que se trataria de um projeto digno de investimento