Retailing 4.0 and Technology-Driven Innovation: A Literature Review

The paper analyzes the contribution of technology for boosting innovation within the retail industry. The study focuses on the main areas of innovation for retailers, both in the relationships with suppliers and the final demand. With reference to vertical relationships (for supplying activities), the key innovation areas are those of technology based interaction tools, joint management of supplying activities, and E-sourcing. In the relations with consumers, technology is stimulating innovation on checkout technologies, dynamic in-store pricing, electronic and mobile payments, augmented reality, artificial intelligence-supported devices, and self-service technologies

Engaging Retail Customers Through Service and Systems Marketing: Insights for Community Pharmacy Stores

This chapter highlights the need for and the directions of a rethinking of the approach to Retail Marketing to overcome the limitations of a view that can fail in effectively engaging customers in the relationship with retailers, as they are still excessively focused on the ‘structural' elements of the service offering. Many physical stores, in particular, show what can be called the ‘paradox' of a Goods-Dominant Logic in the service offering. Among the advancements of service research, Service-Dominant Logic has highlighted the need to take a general service view of market exchange to better engage customers in a value co-creation relational context. To accomplish such a paradigmatic change, systems thinking and the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) provide interpretation tools useful to shift focus on interaction. Essentially, this chapter illustrates the conceptual and practical advantages of the adoption of a Service & Systems Approach to Retail Marketing, providing examples and insights with reference to the case of Community Pharmacy

Engaging Retail Customers through Service & Systems Marketing: Insights for Community Pharmacy Stores

This chapter highlights the need for and the directions of a rethinking of the approach to Retail Marketing to overcome the limitations of a view that can fail in effectively engage customers in the relationship with retailers being still excessively focused on the ‘structural’ elements of the service offering. Many physical stores, in particular, show what can be called the ‘paradox’ of a Goods-Dominant Logic in the service offering. Among the advancements of service research, Service-Dominant Logic has highlighted the need to take a general service view of market exchange to better engage customers in a value co-creation relational context. To accomplish such a paradigmatic change, systems thinking and the Viable Systems Approach (VSA) provide interpretation tools useful to shift focus on interaction. Essentially, this chapter illustrates the conceptual and practical advantages of the adoption of a Service & Systems Approach to Retail Marketing providing examples and insights with reference to the case of Community Pharmacy