Increasing Access to Food: A Comprehensive Report on Food Supply Options

Access to food is one of the most important aspects of a healthy, sustainable community. Grocery stores and other suppliers can serve as an economic anchor to provide social benefits to communities. Unfortunately, many communities do not have convenient and/or affordable access to grocery items, particularly fresh produce. As part of Virginia Commonwealth University\u27s Fall 2019 graduate course on Urban Commercial Revitalization, class members researched 13 retail and other food access options, which are described in this report. Each chapter covers a food access option and provides basic information that will be useful to individuals, organizations, or government agencies that wish to attract and/or develop grocery operations in their communities

The Effect of Loyalty Program Attributes on Customer’s Booking Choice

A loyalty program is commonly observed in our real world to establish and maintain a customer relationship. However, there is limited research information on the effect of loyalty program schemes on customers\u27 choice in an online booking context. The current study summarized the awards currently offered by major hotels and online travel agencies (OTAs) and examined: 1) customers\u27 preference toward attributes of the loyalty program, 2) within reward attributes, which contributes to an increase in consumers\u27 booking choice, 3) which attributes make customers book on hotel websites rather than on OTA websites, and 4) the interaction between customer involvement and hotel loyalty programs\u27 attributes on booking preference. The results revealed that customers prefer rewards that are related to hotel booking and immediate point redemption. Changing the reward attribute level from unrelated rewards to related rewards increased customers\u27 probability of choice. However, timing of redemption did not affect the choice. Further, the effect of related rewards on increasing the chance of booking was stronger for consumers on a high reward program tier than those on a low reward program tier. However, no interaction was found between time and customers\u27 tier of the program. Results suggest that the effect of hotel and OTA\u27s loyalty program attributes on customers\u27 choice is different from other industries\u27 loyalty programs

Psychology and Economics: Evidence from the Field

The research in Psychology and Economics (a.k.a. Behavioral Economics) suggests that individuals deviate from the standard model in three respects: (i) non-standard preferences; (ii) non-standard beliefs; and (iii) non-standard decision-making. In this paper, I survey the empirical evidence from the field on these three classes of deviations. The evidence covers a number of applications, from consumption to finance, from crime to voting, from giving to labor supply. In the class of non-standard preferences, I discuss time preferences (self-control problems), risk preferences (reference dependence), and social preferences. On non-standard beliefs, I present evidence on overconfidence, on the law of small numbers, and on projection bias. Regarding non-standard decision-making, I cover limited attention, menu effects, persuasion and social pressure, and emotions. I also present evidence on how rational actors -- firms, employers, CEOs, investors, and politicians -- respond to the non-standard behavior described in the survey. I then summarize five common empirical methodologies used in Psychology and Economics. Finally, I briefly discuss under what conditions experience and market interactions limit the impact of the non-standard features.

Dynamic Pricing with Point Redemption

Many sellers allow consumers to pay with reward points instead of cash or credit card. While the revenue implications of cash purchases are transparent, the implication of reward sales is not trivial, when a firm that issues points is not a seller. In this case, a seller receives a compensation from the point issuer when a consumer purchases the good with points. We examine how reward sales influence a seller's pricing and inventory decisions. We consider a consumer who can choose to pay with cash or points based on reservation price, point balance, and the perceived value of a point. Then, we incorporate this into a pricing model where a seller earns revenues from both cash and reward sales. In contrast to an intuition that reward sales will increase sales and revenue, we show that the effect of reward sales on the seller's price is non-trivial as the seller could either add a premium or discount depending on the inventory level, time, and the reimbursement rate. Furthermore, such price adjustments can attenuate the optimal mark-up or mark-down level, and reduce the price fluctuation caused by inventory level and remaining time. We investigate settings where the seller has different operational controls over reward sales and find that allowing reward sales is still better even when the revenue from the reward sales is smaller than the cash sales. We also find that a seller with an ability to control availability (i.e., allow a reward sale or not) can achieve a revenue similar to the revenue of a seller with an ability to change point requirements and price.https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/142796/1/1377_Ahn.pd

Toward an interdisciplinary science of consumption

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/88117/1/j.1749-6632.2011.06163.x.pd

The use of product scarcity in marketing

Purpose: as a frequently observed business phenomenon, the use of product scarcity to improve a product’s market performance has received increasing attention from both academics and practitioners. The resulting literature has covered a wide variety of issues based on various theories, using different research methods, in a diverse range of settings. However, this diversity also makes it difficult to grasp the core themes and findings, and to see the outstanding knowledge gaps. This paper reviews previous studies on the use of product scarcity in marketing, and identifies new directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach: a systematic review was conducted to identify and analyse 66 research papers published in business and management journals between 1970 and 2017. Findings: we examined the underlying theories of scarcity-based marketing, and developed a conceptual framework that describes the key factors of product scarcity and how they influence both consumers and the market. We also highlighted some key achievements in modelling the processes involved in using product scarcity in marketing. Originality/value: our analysis of the identified papers suggests that there are substantial gaps in our knowledge of this field, which opens up new paths for future research. For future research, we identified three directions aimed at: addressing the practical needs of firms in understanding product scarcity; guiding the implementation of scarcity-based strategies; and measuring, monitoring, and predicting the level of product scarcity and its impacts during implementation

Evaluating Loyalty Programs with Endogenous Redemption

Evaluating the capacity of consumer loyalty programs to generate additional sales is essential for marketers who run such programs. However, customers\u27 self-selection into the loyalty programs makes this evaluation difficult. This is the case especially in set-ups where the reward is not granted automatically upon achieving a certain number of points. In the case of automatic rewards, marketing theory predicts that points accumulation accelerates as consumers approach the threshold of necessary points for the reward, and is also boosted after the redemption, in what is called `the rewarded behavior effect\u27. In this thesis I use these insights to develop two models for evaluating loyalty programs where the rewards are not granted automatically. The first model applies to programs where consumers use the accumulated points like cash, for day-to-day expenses, while the second applies to programs where consumers use the points for non-ordinary treats, which on average are much larger. I estimate the parameters of both models using data provided by AIR MILES, Canada\u27s largest coalition loyalty program. I show how sample heterogeneity and the non-random timing of the reward cash-in can be confounded with true loyalty program effects and I tease apart these effects to obtain non-biased estimates of program profitability. I use the model insights to suggest ways in which AIR MILES can change the program to further boost its profitability, contingent on retailers\u27 contribution margins. The dissertation advances the literature by developing structural models for set-ups where retailers do not impose automatic redemptions upon consumers

Internet+ Logistics in Chinese Non-Timber Forest Products Online Stores

Electronic commerce (E-commerce) has become an international phenomena nowadays. Especially in China, due to the country’s size, large population and culture, the consumption-driven economic growth plays a more fundamental role than in many other countries, which gives higher requirements for the development of modern logistics. The rapid development of Chinese e-commerce, has made online shopping a very important part in people’s daily life as it is cheaper and more convenient than to buy things from traditional stores. At the same time, the Chinese government gives strong support to E-commerce in its economic development strategy. In March 2015 an E-commerce idea called Internet Plus (Internet+) was officially announced by the Chinese Prime Minister as an important government business strategy in the future economic development plan. The idea does not only aim to develop a new type of economics, but also to improve the traditional economics. The new strategy can decrease enterprises’ cost and increase overall operating efficiency. Behind the high development speed of the e-commerce, logistics is a very important factor to ensure the success of the online business and it is necessary to realize which factors under E-commerce Logistics takes the biggest part and has the most weight among all logistics features. In this study, I will concentrate on Internet+ Logistics, which derived from E-commerce Logistics. Evaluate the logistics performance of 364 online none timber forest products (NTFPs) stores from Alibaba online shopping mall names Tmall. The study can be seen as complete and conceptual, both in the academic and the practical field. By using entropy weight method, Topsis analysis and cross analysis, I analyze the weights of different levels indexes in Internet+ Logistics performance and also get total scores and ranking of sample online stores, in order to understand the important factors and the development trend in Internet+ Logistics. My study reveals, that some indexes such as service can largely influence the performance of online store logistics, which are the most important elements of Internet+ Logistics. The proposed framework enriches the theory of network marketing and gives directions to business owners to make improvements on the logistics quality of their online stores

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A HIGHLY MODIFIABLE RETAIL E-COMMERCE WEBSITE

The availability, modifiability, and performance of retail e-commerce websites(RECWEB) is greatly impacted by seasonal constraints. For many RECWEB, half of the calendar year is comprised of holidays and seasons. Spikes in website traffic and transactions can lower availability, modifiability, and performance of a RECWEB. This can result in downtime, customer abandonment, and ultimately lost revenue. This research focuses the modifiability aspects of the problem. During holiday and seasonal periods, enhancements to a RECWEB are generally not feasible. Enhancements put availability and performance at risk. In addition, most human resources are dedicated managing content changes. RECWEB are less modifiable then other systems because enhancements are only feasible for half of the calendar year. Furthermore, the scope of an enhancement must fit within a six month time box. This research provides pilot project for testing, designing, and implementing a highly modifiable RECWEB. The approach is to automate seasonal content changes. The cost savings on human resources can be reallocated to enhancements work. In addition, enhancements can simulate holiday seasons further in advance. The result is enhancement deployment is more feasible throughout the calendar year