Separation of Perishable Inventories in Offline Retailing Through Transshipment

Transshipment in retailing is a practice where one outlet ships its excess inventory to another outlet with inventory shortages. By balancing inventories, transshipment can reduce waste and increase fill rate at the same time. In “Separation of Perishable Inventories in Offline Retailing Through Transshipment,” Li, Yu, and Du explore the idea of transshipping perishable goods with a fixed finite lifetime in offline grocery retailing. In the offline retailing of perishable goods, customers typically choose the newest items first, which can lead to substantial waste. They show that, in this context, transshipment plays two roles. One is inventory balancing, which is well known in the literature. The other is inventory separation, which is new to the literature. That is, transshipment allows a retailer to put newer inventory in one outlet and older inventory in the other. This makes it easier to sell older inventory and reduces waste as a result.

Predicting Out-of-Stock Using Machine Learning: An Application in a Retail Packaged Foods Manufacturing Company

For decades, Out-of-Stock (OOS) events have been a problem for retailers and manufacturers. In grocery retailing, an OOS event is used to characterize the condition in which customers do not find a certain commodity while attempting to buy it. This paper focuses on addressing this problem from a manufacturer’s perspective, conducting a case study in a retail packaged foods manufacturing company located in Latin America. We developed two machine learning based systems to detect OOS events automatically. The first is based on a single Random Forest classifier with balanced data, and the second is an ensemble of six different classification algorithms. We used transactional data from the manufacturer information system and physical audits. The novelty of this work is our use of new predictor variables of OOS events. The system was successfully implemented and tested in a retail packaged foods manufacturer company. By incorporating the new predictive variables in our Random Forest and Ensemble classifier, we were able to improve their system’s predictive power. In particular, the Random Forest classifier presented the best performance in a real-world setting, achieving a detection precision of 72% and identifying 68% of the total OOS events. Finally, the incorporation of our new predictor variables allowed us to improve the performance of the Random Forest by 0.24 points in the F-measure.

Gamification and customer experience: the mediating role of brand engagement in online grocery retailing

Purpose In recent years, the concept of gamification is one of the fastest-growing trends in the field of marketing to persuade, motivate and manipulate customer behavior. The application of gamification has become a priority for marketers as a new way of exploiting customers. Despite the increasing use of gamification mechanisms in marketing activities, there remain limitations. Although there is extensive literature in the field of customer experience and gamification, few studies have empirically examined how gamification influences customer experience by considering the mediating role of brand engagement in the online retailing context. Design/methodology/approach To obtain this aim, a cross-sectional survey was used. The statistical population was customers of online grocery retailers. The convenience sampling technique was used as a sampling technique. Out of 402 received questionnaires, 384 were selected for analysis. Structural equation modeling approach was applied to test the research hypotheses using AMOS 24 and SPSS 22 software. Findings The results indicated that all research hypotheses were supported. Gamification has a significant and positive impact on customer experience, gamification has a positive and significant effect on user customer brand engagement and customer brand engagement has a positive and significant impact on customer experience. Also, it revealed that customer brand engagement mediates between gamification and customer experience. Originality/value A review of the digital marketing literature reveals that there are few empirical studies, which adequately examined significant effective factors of customer experience in online grocery retailing; despite, the majority of researchers consider customer experience as the most important concept in digital marketing. The main contribution of this study is to examine the role of gamification on customer experience through the mediating role of customer engagement in the online grocery context. It adds value to the digital marketing and online retailing literature by providing new insight about determinants of customer experience in online grocery.

The Changing Spatial Organization of Ethnic Retailing: A Case Study of Chinese and South Asian Grocery Store Retailers in the Toronto CMA From 2001 to 2016

Understanding the changing spatial structure of ethnic grocery retailing in Canadian urban regions can provide insights into ethnic business development and the well-being of residents, particularly relating to the availability of healthy food and risk of nutrition-related illnesses. This study explores this through a case study of Chinese and South Asian grocery retailing in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA). In particular, the changing spatial relationship between ethnic grocery business distribution, ethnic residential patterns, and spatial accessibility is examined between 2001 and 2016. A combination of location quotients and global and local indicators of spatial autocorrelation were utilized to assess the relationship between ethnic groups while measures of spatial central tendency and a nearest neighbor analysis assessed the distribution of grocery retailers. An integrated marginalization-accessibility index was then developed to highlight any spatial mismatch between the level of material deprivation and grocery store access, highlighting patterns of inequality throughout the CMA. The results of the study reveal that Chinese and South Asian grocery retailers and residents have suburbanized over the study period. Index results also indicate that some census tracts (CTs) experienced limited access to both mainstream and ethnic grocery stores, particularly among the South Asian community. Finally, there is a growing number of CTs that are well-serviced to Chinese and South Asian grocery stores but are under-serviced to mainstream retailers, potentially identifying areas where ethnic grocers are filling gaps in service. Key words: ethnic grocery retailing, ethnic residential patterns, accessibility, healthy food provision, marginalized neighbourhoods, Toronto Census Metropolitan Area