Unveiling the Online-Offline Divide: Predicting Retail Channel Membership for Luxury Jewelry Consumers Using Discriminant Analysis

The study explores the factors that influence consumers to choose between online and offline channels for purchasing products and services. Using a quantitative approach, data was collected from 352 respondents through a survey and analyzed using discriminant analysis. The study found that consumers tend to purchase products online for self- gratification, better offers, relative price, variety of products, product information, and better price comparison. On the other hand, consumers choose offline channels for quality, reliable information, quality of judgment, and better after-sales services. The papers implications extend to marketing practitioners, specifically in luxury product marketing for segmentation, targeting, and positioning

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Strategic Corporate Research Report

[Excerpt] Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (hereinafter Wal-Mart) is the second-largest company in the world. It has more annual revenue than the GDP of Switzerland. It sells more DVDs, magazines, books, CDs, dog food, diapers, bicycles, toys, toothpaste, jewelry, and groceries than any other retailer does worldwide. It is the largest retailer in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, the second-largest in the United Kingdom, and the third largest in Brazil, With its partners, it is the largest retailer in Central America. Wal-Mart is also the largest private employer in the United States, Mexico, and Canada, and it has 1.8 million employees around the globe. Wal-Mart is so huge that it effectively sets the terms for large swaths of the global economy, from retail wages to apparel prices to transoceanic shipping rates to the location of toy factories. Indeed, if there is one single aspect to understand about the company, it is the fact that Wal-Mart is transforming the relations of production in virtually every product category it sells, through its relationships with suppliers. But its influence goes far beyond the economy. It sets social policy by refusing to sell certain types of birth control. Its construction of supercenters molds the landscape, shapes traffic patterns, and alters the local commercial mix. The retail goliath shapes culture by selling the music of patriotic country singer Garth Brooks but not the critical (and hilarious) The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents America (the Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction. It influences politics by donating millions to conservative politicians and think tanks. Wal-Mart is, in short, one of the most powerful entities in the world. Not surprisingly, Wal-Mart has developed a long list of critics, including unions, human rights organizations, religious groups, environmental activists, community organizations, small business groups, academics, children’s rights groups, and even institutional investors. These groups have exposed the company’s illegal union-busting tactics, its many violations of overtime laws, its abuse of child labor, its egregious healthcare policies, its super-exploitation of immigrant workers, its rampant gender discrimination, the horrific labor conditions at its suppliers’ factories, and its unlawful environmental degradation. They have also chronicled the deleterious effect Wal-Mart has on the public coffers and the quality of community life. New Wal-Mart stores and distribution centers often swallow up government subsidies and tax breaks, take public land, create more congestion, reduce overall wages, destroy retail variety, and increase public outlays for healthcare. To its critics, Wal-Mart represents the worst aspects of 21st-eentury capitalism. Wal-Mart usually counters any criticism with two words: low prices. It is a powerful mantra in a consumerist world. The company does make more products affordable to more people, and that is nothing to sneeze at when wages are stagnant, jobs insecure, pensions disappearing, and health coverage shrinking. With low prices, Wal-Mart helps working men and women get more from their meager paychecks, more necessities like bread, and more luxuries, like roses, too. It is a brilliant and incontrovertible argument, and Wal-Mart’s most ardent defenders take it even farther. They say its obsession with low prices makes the entire economy more efficient and more productive. Suppliers and competitors have to produce more and better products with the same resources, and that redounds to everyone. In the micro, it means falling prices and rising product quality. In the macro, it means economic growth, more jobs, and higher tax revenues. To its defenders, Wal-Mart represents the best aspects of 21st-century capitalism. Despite their radical opposition, critics and defenders of the world’s largest corporation agree on one thing: Wal-Mart represents 21st-century capitalism. It symbolizes a system of increasing market penetration and decreasing social regulation, where more and more aspects of life around the world are subject to economic competition. Wal-Mart’s success rests upon the ongoing destruction of social power in favor of corporate power. It takes advantage of the conditions of the neo-liberal world, from the availability of instant and inexpensive global communication to the continuing collapse of agricultural employment around the world to the rapid diffusion of technological innovation to the oversupply of subjugated migrant labor in nearly every country to the continued existence of undemocratic and corporate-dominated governments. For some, this is as it should be, all part of capitalism’s natural and ultimately benign development. For the rest of us, Wal-Mart is at the heart of what is wrong with the world

Inventory Management with Raw Materials Costs Subject to Quotation: The Analysis of the Jewellery Industry

This thesis has the objective to present the particular inventory management problem in case of procurement of raw materials subject to quotation, a subject that goes beyond traditional stock control policies proposed by literature, where purchase price is typically assumed as a constant and therefore not even considered in the decision of when and how much to order

Building long-term supplier-retailer relationships in the jewellery sector: antecedents of customer loyalty

Purpose of the paper: The paper aims at exploring the antecedents of customer loyalty in supplier-retailer relationships, with the final goal to identify the contribution of technical and relational factors. Methodology: The research consisted in administering a structured questionnaire to a sample of retail customers of a well-known Italian manufacturing company operating in the jewellery sector. Data was processed applying a hierarchical multiple regression. Results: Findings confirm the importance of building trustworthy relationships with retailers in order to maintain and enhance a good long-term relationship with them. Dependence resulted as a crucial factor in determining retailer customer loyalty. Research limitation: The paper focuses on a sole company and sector (Jewellery). No control variables and moderating factors were considered. Next studies should apply the proposed model to other companies and sectors. Practical implications: Given both the costs and risks associated with mismanaging a potentially valuable and loyal business partnership, deeper insights into the factors affecting a long-term supplier-retailer relationship is quite useful both for managers and business practitioners. Originality of the paper: The building of a long-term oriented supplier-retailer relationship results to be less investigated in comparison with the higher attention given to the supplier-customer relationship by the industrial management literature. Moreover, research on supplier-retailer relationships tends to concentrate on the grocery sector, stressing the role of power rather than the impact of relational constructs on the relationship. This work aims at filling in these gaps in a barely investigated sector as the jewellery one

Fundamental Aspects of a Metalsmithing Career

The intent of this paper is to ease the trauma encountered in the difficult transition from novice metalsmith to producing craftsperson. The major areas of discourse are as follows: 1) What is the most beneficial time for mental orientation toward one\u27s career? 2) What actual steps should be taken along with this orientation? 3) How can the artist go about preparing himself financially for the burdens to be encountered in a craft business? 4) What comprise the major forces in the organization of a metalsmithing studio? 5) What kinds of equipment will the artist need to efficiently ply his trade? 6) What might be the most advantageous location for the metalsmith\u27s studio? 7) What role can systems play in the operation of a craft business? 8) There are three major ways of selling: wholesale, retail, and consignment. What are the positive and negative aspects of each and which should the craftsperson employ? 9) What are the various production techniques that are practical for a craftsperson and why should they be used? 10) There are many markets available to the metalsmith. What does each have to offer and how do they all work? 11) How does an independent artist arrive at reasonable and yet profitable prices for his work? What forces will affect his price? 12) What records does a craftsperson need to keep in his operation? How can these records most effectively be kept and what benefits can the records be to the artist? 13) How does an independent go about making the public aware of the service he is offering? 14) How does insurance play a role in an artist\u27s crafts business? What types of insurance does an artist need? 15) There are three basic business structures offered to an artist: sole proprietorship, partnership, and incorporation. What are the characteristics of each form and how will they affect business operation? 16) An artist entering the world of self-employment will encounter many new responsibilities regarding his relationship with local, state, and federal governments. What are some of these new obligations and how can the craftsperson best deal with them? 17) Professional organizations are formed as service groups. What real services do they perform for the artist and how much will it cost? The author does not attempt to give the artist a step-by-step guide to success. Rather he is offering an overview of what can be considered as necessary background for a professional craftsperson. This paper should be used as an indicator of areas for further research

Factors That Influence a Jewelry Brand\u27s Globalization Process

Local retail jewelry leaders of Saudi Arabian (S.A.) small to medium enterprises (SMEs) have struggled to survive through declining profits and increasing business foreclosures, thus threatening the sustainability of the Saudi retail sector and the Saudi economy. A globalization strategy to enhance profitability for jewelry retail SMEs in S.A. is needed, given the limited options for improving profitability. Despite this acknowledged need, leaders in S.A. have refrained from such a strategy because they lack knowledge of economic attraction features to target in the globalization process. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study using discriminant analysis was to examine specific countries\u27 economic attraction features in the historical globalization strategy of a leading U.S. global jewelry company that could facilitate the implementation of a successful globalization strategy for a local Saudi jewelry SME retail company. The study addressed the effects of 6 independent predictor variables of 25 target countries\u27 economic attractions on the dependent grouping variable, which distinguished among 3 order-of-entry groups according to the U.S. company\u27s date of entry in each country between 1972 and 2009. Results indicated that except for the Hofstede index, no other variable had a significant role in the classification of the target countries. Because there was a scarcity of research on this topic, the study is beneficial for its theoretical and academic value, and may be practical for the derivative benefits of catalyzing business growth by empowering leaders of local, successful luxury brands in S.A. to implement their own globalization expansion process and increase employment in the Middle East

Improving the Crystal Ball: Consumer Consensus and Retail Prediction Markets

Retail buyers\u27 forecasts, decisions, and subsequent purchases result in billions of dollars of merchandise being purchased and offered for sale by retailers around the world. However, academic research examining this decision process has been limited, and recommendations for improvement almost nonexistent. In the present study, we begin to address this issue by introducing a new approach that compares retail buyers\u27 consensus forecasts with those from a sample of “ordinary” consumers. The potential for incorporating forecasts from ordinary consumers suggests an opportunity to create what are termed retail prediction markets, which offer significant potential to improve the accuracy of buyers’ forecasts. We conclude with limitations and areas for future research

A Look at the Luxury Retail Industry: Financial Analysis and Advisory Recommendations for Tiffany and Company

This thesis investigates Tiffany and Company, a premier jewelry retailer that is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Company financial statements, as well as external non- company provided sources, were used as data to evaluate the company’s performance, as well as reach a holistic understanding of the company’s operations and financial reporting