PRODUCER VERSUS RETAIL BRAND STRATEGIES – POSITIONING VECTORS IN CONSUMERS’ MIND

Both producers and retailers are engaged in a constant battle for a spot in consumers’ psyche. This is done not only through articles and products that are sold under different brands of producers or retailers, but also by retail brands, ie stores, locations or subsidiaries. In this way, when developing a market, the retailer uses branded product-specific strategies, which he manages to translate very well on his own retail brand. Obviously, both producers and retailers will try through the specific brand strategies adopted to approach consumers, to gain their attention and confidence by the promoted brands. Furthermore they will constantly bombard consumers with information regarding the benefits or utilities of their own brands, the time or money saved by consumers when buying a particular brand or even the unique features comprised by a brand. Confronted with such a wide range of concerted and focused influences on them, consumers must face environmental stimuli, to systematize the needed information and to take the best purchasing decision. They have to choose the proper article from the vast range of offered brands, based on the image that a brand has outlined in consumers’ minds, and by the need they felt respectively (Foscht & Swoboda, 2007, p. 76). The present paper focuses on both producers and retailers specific strategies aimed at achieving an adequate position in consumers’ minds. We emphasize on the most frequent strategies and also give specific examples.brand strategies, producer brand, retail brand, retailers’ own brand.

Investigating shopping experience and fulfilment in omnichannel retailing : a proposed comparative study in Romania and UK of Generation Y consumers

Paper delivered at the 21st Logistics Research Network annual conference 2016, 7th-9th September 2016, Hull. Abstract Purpose: This paper presents a literature review and proposed research agenda to examine whether Romanian retailers are more inclined than UK retailers to reach out to young consumers, i.e. Generation Y through omnichannel retailing to improve their shopping experiences and also determine the impact of this strategy on logistical and fulfilment activities. Research approach: This paper is based on a literature review in three key areas: omnichannel retailing, young consumers’ attitudes and fulfilment and the propensity of online buying behaviour in an emerging market (Romania) versus a more developed economy (UK). As there are few studies related to these aspects, the paper attempts to highlight the best options retailers have for both marketing and online fulfilment when addressing/entering new markets that are very attractive but where cultural background are more different than their traditional markets. Findings and Originality: The literature review suggests there is an opportunity to explore two main relationships: i) marketing and fulfilment for online consumers and omnichannel retailing efforts, and ii) consumers’ propensity to purchase online in an emerging market versus a developed economy. Research impact: This paper suggests some research concepts and ideas to investigate the online fulfilment and buying behaviour of younger generations of consumers in both Romania and the UK. The scope of the proposed agenda will include young consumers’ purchase behaviours’ as regards omnichannel retailing, and logistical fulfilment in an emerging market versus a developed economy including different cultural backgrounds. Practical impact: The paper provides some direction for practitioners on assessing proper market development strategies on an emerging international context, taking into consideration different cultural implications and patterns, as well as focussing on buying propensity of different generations when active in omnichannel retailing. However, the suggested research concepts and ideas would provide a more holistic approach towards a better overall performance of retailers

THE LIFE CYCLE OF SHOPPING CENTERS AND POSSIBLE REVITALIZATION STRATEGIES

This paper addresses the concept of shopping center life cycle. The concept is considered a possible explanation for the death of certain types of shopping centers and birth of others. Of course that there are also other theories that explains this evolutlife cycle, commercial center, strategy

On Best Practices for Risk Management in Complex Projects

Risk management shall be proactive. This is one of the key preliminaries to cope with the challenges of complex projects. An overarching and consistent view on project risks and uncertainties is necessary to follow a holistic approach in project risk management. Uncertainty is inevitable since projects are unique and temporary undertakings based on assumptions and constraints, delivering project results to multiple stakeholders with different requirements. Project management can be seen as an attempt to control this uncertain environment, through the use of structured and disciplined techniques such as estimating, planning, cost control, task allocation, earned value analysis, monitoring, and review meetings. Each of these elements of project management has a role in defining or controlling inherent variability in projects. Project risk management provides approaches by which uncertainty can be understood, assessed, and managed within projects. A number of associations (e.g., Project Management Institute – PMI®, International Project Management Association – IPMA,or Network of Nordic Project Management Associations - NORDNET) work constantly in acquiring, improving, and standardizing best practices in project management.Based on the industrial practice, this paper outlines strategies to identify, prioritize, and mitigate risks for achievement of project’ or organizational objectives.Project Management, Risk Management, Best Practices of Management, Standardization of Management, Maturity of Organizations

STUDY ON RETAIL BRAND AWARENESS IN RETAIL

Brand awareness, together with other behavioural indicators (sympathy, trust, image, satisfaction or loyalty), is one of the main vectors that has an essential contribution to the outline of brand equity in general and to that of retail brand, in particular. The perception upon these indicators must be taken into consideration by production, service or retail companies in order to be able to identify their position on target markets, and in order to be able to create an adequate strategy that would help them reach the desired positioning. The aim of this paper is, on one hand, to reveal both the dimensions of brand awareness, and the relationship between these and consumers' brand perception and, on the other hand, to offer a suitable instrument to measure awareness level of various retail chains. Questioning of almost 4.000 consumers indicates a significant awareness of the retailers that have been on the selected market for a longer period of time.awareness, recall, recognition, retail brands

TENDENCIES OF INTERNATIONALIZATION IN RETAILING

Manufacturing companies took advantage of internationalization as early as in the seventies and eighties of the last century, whereas retail companies have used these chances not before the last few years in order to improve access to resources, to increase sales and to extend activities to external markets. Once a retail company has decided to penetrate a foreign market they must be aware of the unfamiliar working of external environment that they cannot control. Even the world's leading retailers make mistakes when approaching markets they do not understand properly.retailing; internationalization; elements of external environment; behavioural polyvalence; consumers' orientation

Overlapping Boundaries of the Project Time Management and Project Risk Management

Based on utility function, milestones during project and/or the end of projects or programme may be categorized in what are called soft-deadline and hard-deadline. In contrast with the soft-end projects, the hard-end projects posses a decrease of utility function with a vertical asymptote character around the deadline for project completion. In extreme situations, the utility function itself may fall under zero (projects may generate losses to both constructor and customer). Existing risk analysis methodologies observe risks from monetary terms. The typical risks are correlated with an increase in final project costs. In order to estimate harddeadline milestones and/or end of projects or programme is critical to employ the time dimension rather than the typical cost-based risk analysis. Here, we comprehensively describe a structured methodology that focuses on minimizing and mitigating project specific delay risks. The method may supplement existing cost-based risk analysis in projects. We aim to elegantly combine moderation techniques to reveal the intrinsic risk of the projects. In addition to the technical risks, the moderation techniques are able to bring evidence of risks as the team efficacy, diverse un-correlations or miss-understanding about the roles of the team members in the team – most of the project soft risk. Described methodology encourages the common understanding of risks for participants, crystallizing the essence of what can go wrong in complex situations and where the opportunities can be unlocked.Project Management, Risk Management, Time Management, Deadline, Delays

Typological aspects of retailers on the background of market concentration

Recent evolution of the market globalization, accompanied by rougher competition, implies adaptation of the traders to this new reality. Their work policy will have to attract more consumer segments using the various types of retail and wholesale trade stores. Moreover emphasis is to be put on “reorientation” of demand - especially from young consumers - towards the forms of the stationary trade, impressive by its comfort and simplicity of acquisition.non-stationery trade, trade unit, wholesaler, retailer.

How to Ask for a Favor: A Case Study on the Success of Altruistic Requests

Requests are at the core of many social media systems such as question & answer sites and online philanthropy communities. While the success of such requests is critical to the success of the community, the factors that lead community members to satisfy a request are largely unknown. Success of a request depends on factors like who is asking, how they are asking, when are they asking, and most critically what is being requested, ranging from small favors to substantial monetary donations. We present a case study of altruistic requests in an online community where all requests ask for the very same contribution and do not offer anything tangible in return, allowing us to disentangle what is requested from textual and social factors. Drawing from social psychology literature, we extract high-level social features from text that operationalize social relations between recipient and donor and demonstrate that these extracted relations are predictive of success. More specifically, we find that clearly communicating need through the narrative is essential and that that linguistic indications of gratitude, evidentiality, and generalized reciprocity, as well as high status of the asker further increase the likelihood of success. Building on this understanding, we develop a model that can predict the success of unseen requests, significantly improving over several baselines. We link these findings to research in psychology on helping behavior, providing a basis for further analysis of success in social media systems.Comment: To appear at ICWSM 2014. 10pp, 3 fig. Data and other info available at http://www.mpi-sws.org/~cristian/How_to_Ask_for_a_Favor.htm