How COVID-19 Has Influenced the Purchase Patterns of Young Adults in Developed and Developing Economies: Factor Analysis of Shopping Behavior Roots

The paper presents survey results from shopping behavior transformation in developed and developing countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak in spring 2020. The survey includes the polling process that covered 515 and 117 young adults, respectively, for two economies and factor analysis to determine the latent intentions of purchase behavior. Shopping patterns were studied for food, medicine, goods of first priority, electronics, clothing, and shoes. According to factor analysis results, we determined nine factors that reveal some similarities in shopping behavior as pro-safe purchases and belt-tightening patterns for both economies. Along with that, we revealed that people from developed countries perceived the greater danger and fear due to the COVID-19 crisis than young adults from developing economy. Based on polling results, the post–COVID-19 shopping channel choice behavior was evaluated for developed and developing economies.

PHP India: the e-commerce dilemma

Learning outcomes Through the analysis of the case, the students will be able to: 1. appreciate the dynamics in a multi-channel environment especially in the relatively new ecommerce space in India; 2. understand the decision-making process and the impact on various stakeholders in adopting a new ecommerce sales channel; and 3. evaluate financial implications of channel profitability and its implication on the decision. Case overview/synopsis Philadelphia Home Products (PHP) India was facing a sales slowdown and was looking at a foray into the e-commerce channel, as an answer for business growth. The decision was not an easy one, as it had implications on existing channel partnerships and the organization. Channel choice decisions had acquired a new dimension with the proliferation of ecommerce platforms and changing online consumer buying habits. It was January 2015 and Nandini Devgan, CEO of PHP India was with her experienced team, who clearly had differing points of view. She needed to put the organization back on a growth trajectory, but how does she balance the various differing views put forth by her team? Was entering the ecommerce channel the best option? Complexity academic level This case is designed for use at the postgraduate level in courses, such as sales management, channel management, e-commerce and strategic marketing courses, as well as in executive management programs. The case is relevant from the context of channel management of a Consumer-Packaged Goods company in India, where e-commerce is nascent yet growing. It gives students a practical hands-on decision-making situation, where there are complexities of quantitative and qualitative nature. It triggers a discussion where the chief executive officer (CEO) and her team are facing growth and profitability issues, and have to take a decision on whether or not to adopt the e-commerce channel while managing the existing channels. Supplementary materials Teaching note is available for educators only. Subject code CSS 8: Marketing.

Patient Decision and Experience in the Multi-channel Appointment Context: An Empirical Study (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Long waiting time for treatment in the outpatient department has long been a complaint and influence patient experience. It is critical to schedule patients for doctors to reduce patient waiting time. Nowadays, the multi-channel appointment has been provided for patients to get medical services, especially for those with severe illnesses and remote distance. OBJECTIVE This study aims to explore the factors influencing patient appointment channel choice in the context of multi-channel appointments, and how channel choice affects the waiting time for offline visiting. METHODS We collected outpatient appointment records from both online and offline appointment channels to conduct our empirical research. The empirical analysis is conducted into two steps. We first analyze the relationship between appointment channel choice and patient waiting time, and then the relationships between three determinants and appointment channel choice. The ordinary least squares and the logistic regression model are used to obtain empirical results. RESULTS Our results show that a patient with an online appointment decision has a shorter consultation waiting time compared with a patient with on-site appointment (β = -0.320, p<0.001). High-quality resource demand (β = 0.349, p<0.001), high-severity disease (β = 0.011, p<0.001), and high non-disease costs (β = 0.039, p<0.001) create an obvious incentive for patients to make appointments via the Internet. Further, only the effect of non-disease cost on channel choice is lower for patients with multiple visit histories (β = -0.021, p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS Our study confirms the effect of Internet use on reducing patient waiting time. Patients consider both health-related risk factors and cost-related risk factors to make decisions on appointment channels. Our study produces several insights, which have implications for channel choice and patient behavior literature. More importantly, these insights as a whole, contribute to the design of appointment systems of hospitals.

Channel Structures of Online Retail Platforms

Problem definition: This paper investigates the channel choice problem of an online platform that exerts service effort to enhance the demand in its sales channels. Academic/practical relevance: In the existing literature on the channel structure of an online retail platform, it is usually assumed that a manufacturer sells through either the platform’s agency or reselling channel but not both. In practice, many manufacturers sell the same products through both channels of the same online retail platform, a phenomenon that cannot be explained by the existing theory. Moreover, online retail platforms routinely invest in retail services that enhance the demand in their sales channels. Methodology: We develop a game-theoretic model to investigate the equilibrium channel choice, wholesale price, and retail quantity decisions. We also conduct sensitivity analysis to evaluate the impact of some parameters on the equilibrium. Results: We derive conditions under which each of the three channel structures (agency channel, reselling channel, and dual channel) emerges in equilibrium. We show that the wholesale price in the reselling channel is reduced because of the addition of the agency channel even when both channels are equally efficient, which extends the wholesale price effect because of the addition of a less efficient direct channel in the supplier encroachment literature. Our analysis highlights the flexibility of a dual channel for firms to shift sales between the two channels, which could increase the retail platform’s incentive to exert service effort. Managerial implications: Our study provides useful insights to managers to understand and make channel choice decisions in supply chains with manufacturers selling through online retail platforms.

Rethinking the ranks of visual channels

Data can be visually represented using visual channels like position, length or luminance. An existing ranking of these visual channels is based on how accurately participants could report the ratio between two depicted values. There is an assumption that this ranking should hold for different tasks and for different numbers of marks. However, there is surprisingly little existing work that tests this assumption, especially given that visually computing ratios is relatively unimportant in real-world visualizations, compared to seeing, remembering, and comparing trends and motifs, across displays that almost universally depict more than two values.To simulate the information extracted from a glance at a visualization, we instead asked participants to immediately reproduce a set of values from memory after they were shown the visualization. These values could be shown in a bar graph (position (bar)), line graph (position (line)), heat map (luminance), bubble chart (area), misaligned bar graph (length), or `wind map' (angle). With a Bayesian multilevel modeling approach, we show how the rank positions of visual channels shift across different numbers of marks (2, 4 or 8) and for bias, precision, and error measures. The ranking did not hold, even for reproductions of only 2 marks, and the new probabilistic ranking was highly inconsistent for reproductions of different numbers of marks. Other factors besides channel choice had an order of magnitude more influence on performance, such as the number of values in the series (e.g., more marks led to larger errors), or the value of each mark (e.g., small values were systematically overestimated). Every visual channel was worse for displays with 8 marks than 4, consistent with established limits on visual memory. These results point to the need for a body of empirical studies that move beyond two-value ratio judgments as a baseline for reliably ranking the quality of a visual channel, including testing new tasks (detection of trends or motifs), timescales (immediate computation, or later comparison), and the number of values (from a handful, to thousands)

The critical factors shaping customer shopping experiences with innovative technologies

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore the customer shopping experience in the innovative technology setting. Specifically, the purpose is to understand how do innovative technologies influence the customer shopping experience?Design/methodology/approachThis qualitative, explorative study has characteristics of a phenomenological research strategy. The data were collected from four focus groups and ten in-depth interviews with consumers. Abductive approach with an implementation of content analysis was used as a method of analysis.FindingsThe results show that there are three critical factors in customer's shopping experience in the context of innovative technologies; (1) channel choice, (2) value dimensions related to convenience and enjoyment, and (3) social interaction. All factors are highly intertwined and influence each other.Originality/valueThis study contributes to customer experience literature by offering a framework for understanding customer shopping experiences in the innovative technology setting. These findings have important implications for retail managers seeking to enhance customer experience and achieve a competitive advantage by utilizing innovative technology.