Scale, Scope, and Specialization Effects on Retailers’ Procurement Strategies: Evidence from the Fresh Produce Markets of São Paulo

Worldwide, the emergence of large supermarket chains in food retail markets is often associated with the marginalization of smaller retailers. A notable exception exists in Brazil, however, where small retailers have held their place in the market and recently even gained ground. The literature investigating how retail concentration has affected agrifood chains has focused activities of the largest retail chains, implicitly holding the scale, scope and specialization of retailers’ input needs constant, and overlooking the influence of these factors on retailers’ procurement strategies. This paper tests hypotheses regarding these variables’ effects on retailers’ fresh produce procurement strategies. Data is drawn from a survey of retailers in metropolitan São Paulo. The research results provide insight into factors underlying retailers’ procurement strategy choices and tradeoffs among options. The results support the fundamental hypothesis of the paper that research on the competitive strategies of smaller retailers in a context of market domination by large retailers should not focus exclusively on the degree to which the smaller retailers imitate the larger retailers rather it should account for the possibility that the underlying characteristics of the retailers may make diverse competitive strategies appropriate.scale, scope, specialization, procurement strategy, fresh produce, retail, Political Economy, L22,

INTERNET RETAIL IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT AND BUSINESS OPERATIONS

This study investigates Internet retailers in a developing country. It aims to investigate the characteristic of business profiles and operations, and to describe performance measurement implemented and its use. Internet-based research was adopted by combining a questionnaire email survey with web content analysis to study Indonesian Internet retailers. The results show that the majority of Indonesian Internet retailers are immature, small size, and without store-presence. The business operation practices, such as ordering, payment, and communication, indicate some differences from those in developed economies. Though Indonesian Internet retailers are still immature, they have measured various aspects of business performance. Those measured more performance indicators are likely to use the information more intensively to support decision making. This study has limitations such as the small number of responses, which might prevent the generalization of the results. The findings could be used by local Internet retailers to improve the business operations and performance measurement, as well as global Internet retailers entering Indonesian market to adopt some local operation practices

Theory and evidence on pricing by asymmetric oligopolies

We present an analysis of markets with many asymmetrically positioned retailers that compete for the business of both informed and uninformed customers for a homogenous good, such as software, music, book or a brand-name appliance. We show that two forms of asymmetry, one related to loyal segment sizes of retailers and one related to the positioning of firms, completely explain the observed price dispersion in such markets and the multitude of asymmetrical strategies adopted by retailers. The stochastic dominance of empirical mixed strategy measures is used to test the theory with data on 968 books from 10 online retailers

Importance-performance analysis of retail website service quality

This study intends to empirically explore the customer’s perceived ranking of the importance of a range of on-line services, and their perceptions of the retailers’ performance in delivering these services. An online questionnaire survey has been conducted to gather the data from respondents. The data was analysed using Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA). The findings suggest areas of e-service quality where retailers could improve, based on the customers’ perceptions of the retailers’ performance against the importance of some e-service quality features and/or services on offer. Consequently, this study highlights that retailers should take active steps to understand their customers’ requirements, before developing an online customer services strategy. From a practical perspective, retailers could also apply the questionnaire developed for this study to canvas the opinions of customers, to help identify areas in which their performance needs to be improved

Authenticity and Fraud Information to Retailers regarding Control of Quality and Safety in Organic Production Chains

This leaflet provides a practical overview for retailers of what is done to secure the authenticity and integrity of organically produced foods, where improvements are possible and what the retailers can do to support efforts that meet their customers’ demands. Other leaflets for retailers cover taste, freshness and nutrients or safety and contamination, and separate leaflets aim at consumers or at production of specific commodities

Taste, Freshness and Nutrients Information to Retailers regarding Control of Quality and Safety in Organic Production Chains

This leaflet provides a practical overview for retailers of what is done to secure the quality and taste of seven types of organically produced foods, where improvements are possible, and what the retailers can do to support improvements and ensure the best possible food quality. Other leaflets for retailers cover authenticity and fraud or safety and contamination, and separate leaflets aim at consumers or at production of specific commodities

Approximation Algorithms for the Joint Replenishment Problem with Deadlines

The Joint Replenishment Problem (JRP) is a fundamental optimization problem in supply-chain management, concerned with optimizing the flow of goods from a supplier to retailers. Over time, in response to demands at the retailers, the supplier ships orders, via a warehouse, to the retailers. The objective is to schedule these orders to minimize the sum of ordering costs and retailers' waiting costs. We study the approximability of JRP-D, the version of JRP with deadlines, where instead of waiting costs the retailers impose strict deadlines. We study the integrality gap of the standard linear-program (LP) relaxation, giving a lower bound of 1.207, a stronger, computer-assisted lower bound of 1.245, as well as an upper bound and approximation ratio of 1.574. The best previous upper bound and approximation ratio was 1.667; no lower bound was previously published. For the special case when all demand periods are of equal length we give an upper bound of 1.5, a lower bound of 1.2, and show APX-hardness

Online Store Locator: An Essential Resource for Retailers in the 21st Century

Most retailers use their websites and social media to increase their visibility, while potential customers get information about these retailers using the Internet on electronic devices. Many papers have previously studied online marketing strategies used by retailers, but little attention has been paid to determine how these companies provide information through the Internet about the location and characteristics of their stores. This paper aims to obtain evidence about the inclusion of interactive web maps on retailers’ websites to provide information about the location of their stores. With this purpose, the store locator interactive tools of specialty retailers’ websites included in the report “Global Powers of Retailing 2015” are studied in detail using different procedures, such as frequency analysis and word clouds. From the results obtained, it was concluded that most of these firms use interactive maps to provide information about their offline stores, but today some of them still use non-interactive (static) maps or text format to present this information. Moreover, some differences were observed among the search filters used in the store locator services, according to the retailer’s specialty. These results provided insight into the important role of online store locator tools on retailers’ websites

Impact of ministry of health interventions on private medicine retailer knowledge and practices on anti-malarial treatment in Kenya.

Small-scale interventions on training medicine retailers on malaria treatment improve over-the-counter medicine use, but there is little evidence on effectiveness when scaled up. This study evaluated the impact of Ministry of Health (MoH) training programs on the knowledge and practices of medicine retailers in three districts in Kenya. A cluster randomized trial was planned across 10 administrative divisions. Findings indicated that 30.7% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 23.3, 39.0) and 5.2% (95% CI: 2.1, 10.3) of program and control retailers, respectively, sold MoH amodiaquine with correct advice on use to surrogate clients (OR = 8.8; 95% CI: 2.9, 26.9; P < 0.001). Similarly, 61.8% (95% CI: 54.2, 69.1) and 6.3% (95% CI: 2.7, 12.1) of program and control retailers, respectively, reported correct knowledge on dosing with amodiaquine (OR = 29.8; 95% CI: 8.2, 108.8). Large-scale retailer training programs within the national malaria control framework led to significant improvements in retailers' practices across three districts

Large Retailers Financial Services

Over the last few years, large retailers offering financial services have considerably grown in the financial services sector. Retailers are increasing the wideness and complexity of their offer of financial services. Large retail companies provide financial services to their customers following different strategic ways. The provision of financial services in the retailers offer is implemented in several different ways related to the strategies, the structures and the degree of financial know-how of the large retailers involved.Large Retailers; Financial Services; Retailing; Supply Models; Global Competition