abstract: While scan-based trading (SBT) is a growing trend in the retail industry, evidence suggests that many SBT initiatives have contributed only to the retailers’ bottom line at the suppliers’ expense. This research attempts to disclose some of the causes of SBT failure as a collaborative inventory management initiative and identify SBT’s integrative potential using both positivistic and normative research methodologies. In the first chapter, SBT contracts are analyzed through the lens of Agency Theory. By focusing on unique inventory ownership and risks considerations resulting from retailers managing supplier-owned inventory without bearing the cost of inventory shrinkage, the effect of SBT on inventory shrinkage is examined empirically using a data set from a packaged bakery manufacturer. The results show that inventory shrinkage tends to be higher under SBT contracts compared to traditional vendor-managed inventory (VMI) contracts. The study highlights a potential loss in efficiency in food supply chains reflected in higher shrinkage under SBT contracts. The second chapter aims to identify conditions under which SBT contracts could be mutually beneficial for retailers and suppliers. Using stylized game theoretic models involving a retailer and a supplier of a product with limited shelf life, the study finds that, while inventory shrinkage may be amplified under SBT contracts compared to VMI contracts due to the decreased retailer’s incentive to manage inventory at the store, SBT could help suppliers minimize inventory overage and underage under high demand uncertainty. The integrative potential for SBT contracts, thus, lies in the trade-off between inventory shrinkage and forecasting accuracy. In the third paper, the role of bargaining power on the performance of SBT contracts is examined. Based on the bargaining literature, it is hypothesized that perceptions of bargaining power can be reshaped in the bargaining process through concession tactics. The results of a negotiation experiment show that, while powerful retailers do tend to have the upper hand in negotiating SBT contracts, weak suppliers could ameliorate or even overcome retailer power by offering services as a concession in a way that the product-service bundle improves the value of their offerings in the eyes of the retailers. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

This paper is about the omnichannel marketing strategy, defined by Levy, M., Weitz, B., and Grewal, D. (2013) as, “a coordinated multichannel offering that provides a seamless experience when using all of the retailer’s shopping channels”. This is an evolution of the multichannel marketing strategy and a topic that remains underexplored in the academic world. The aim of the omnichannel strategy is to expand the available touch points and combine the advantages of the interactive aspect of a physical store with the information-rich experience aspect of online shopping (Frazer & Stiehler, 2014). This paper is focused on the fashion retail industry in Sweden, an industry worth 206 billion Swedish SEK turnover in 2011 (Volante Research, 2015), which has seen a steady growth in the use of online shopping services.   The purpose of this paper is to explore what implications an omnichannel strategy may have on customer loyalty in the fashion industry in Sweden. The method used to assess the potential implications involved five focus group sessions with a total of twenty-five millennial participants. The primary and secondary information gathered was broken down and analysed using a conceptual model, inspired by existing theories, developed specifically for this paper. This analysis lead to the conclusion that, although the omnichannel strategy can provide benefits for customers and ease the shopping experience, customers do not see the strategy as being a make or break factor in their satisfaction and loyalty development.

Complaint handling encounters represent useful opportunities for retailers to rectify problems, salvage the relationship between the retailer and the customer, and increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Service recovery (complaint handling) therefore becomes critical “moments of truth” for organisations in their efforts to satisfy and retain customers. The purpose of the research was to explore and describe complainants’ evaluations of appliance retailers’ complaint handling procedures in terms of their perceptions of justice. In addition, the relationships between perceived justice and emotions and perceive justice and post-complaint behavioural intentions were explored. The unit of analysis was consumers who had encountered an appliance failure and had sought redress from the appliance retailer where the appliance was originally purchased (within a oneyear recall period). This study used a cross-sectional survey approach to capture real perceptions of justice, emotions and behavioural intentions. Convenience sampling was employed in Tshwane, a major metropolitan area of South Africa. Data was collected via a self-administered questionnaire. A total of 198 usable questionnaires were collected. The results of the exploratory factor analysis showed that respondents had specific expectations about retailers’ complaint handling. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the respondents indeed judged complaint handling in terms of procedural, interactional and distributive justice. They experienced procedural justice when complaint handling personnel followed company policy and the correct procedures in handling their complaints, when the employees were competent, when they resolved complaints in a timely manner and made it easy for the dissatisfied consumers to voice their complaints. The respondents experienced interactional justice when complaint handling personnel treated them with respect (were polite), made it easy for them to determine where to lodge their complaints (i.e. to whom they should complain in the company), communicated clearly (with adequate use of language), were appropriately concerned about the problem, took great effort in resolving the complaint, and provided them with an appropriate explanation as to why the appliance has failed. Verbal communication about where to complain forms part of respondents’ perception of the fairness of the interpersonal communications used in settling complaints factor, rather than the procedural justice factor. The respondents experienced distributive justice when they perceived that the redress (i.e. compensation: free repairs, product exchange, refund, voucher etc.) offered by the retailers was more they expected, was fair, was what they deserved or was what they needed. Respondents perceived that retailers’ were fair concerning procedural justice and distributive justice, but unfair concerning interactional justice. The strongest positive emotions that respondents experienced were gratitude, happiness, being valued and joyfulness, while lower levels of warm feelings and pride were experienced. The strongest negative emotions that respondents experienced were anger, annoyance, being upset and being in a bad mood, while lower levels of guilt and sadness were experienced. Relationships exist between respondents’ perceptions of justice and their emotions, and between their emotions and post-complaint behavioural intentions (repurchase intentions, word-of-mouth intentions and third-party complaint intentions). The study has important practical implications for appliance retailers / Dissertation (MSc)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2014 / Consumer Science / Unrestricted

The growing technology has changed the form of advertising and user behavior. Recent years, the amount of personalized advertising is on a steady rise. Personalized advertising is based on a method called retargeting to tailor the advertisements to individual consumers by inferring their interests and preferences.However, there are still many deficiencies in personalized advertising that reduce the user experience. Understanding the attitudes of users and companies to personalized advertising can help improve these deficiencies. Hence, the purpose of this study is to compare different opinions regarding personalized advertising from Chinese consumers and companies towards Taobao respectively.This investigation uses a case study method to study the purpose. Taobao is an e-commerce platform with a high frequency of personalized advertising and has a great impact on China. Therefore, Taobao has been chosen as our case. First the background of personalized advertising is introduced, and then personalized advertising in Taobao is described. The different opinions of both consumers and companies are studied. In general, consumers have a positive attitude towards personalized advertising. However, there is a need for improvement in terms of privacy, trust and effectiveness. For companies, the effect of personalized advertising is satisfying, but the price makes is difficult for them to afford it.

Purpose - This thesis aims to describe the strategies employed by omnichannel experts in Swedish retail shops during the Covid19 pandemic. Furthermore, the integration of the physical and online channels is studied to describe the methods used to increase sales, especially in the online channels. Methodology – The study applies a qualitative method where semi-structured interviews were conducted with omnichannel experts from retail businesses. Findings – The aim of the retail shops during the Covid19 pandemic has been to perform in- store and online shopping despite the partial restrictions. Retail shops had to adapt to the changes in the Swedish market and the consumer behavior. The challenge of maintaining sales and remaining competitive has shown that Swedish retail shops have remained resilient and that adaptation has been key to their business strategies. Practical Implications – Retail businesses worldwide were forced to close their business except for their online services. However, Sweden is a particular case where retailers had to find solutions to their physical and online retail operations. Partial restrictions allowed them to carry out business activities in the Swedish market. Therefore, the current pandemic has influenced Swedish retailers to help them identify business strategies to boost their sales, especially online sales. As well as the data collection and literature findings, both cases suggest that adapting to new technologies is the key to increasing sales in all channels. Therefore, retailers should introduce new ways of working with the help of technological tools to become more competitive and provide excellent service to an increasingly demanding and technologically savvy customer. Contribution – This study contributes to the area of research that looks at how omnichannel retail structures can be improved to increase sales. And how they adapt to change market situations that influence consumer behavior.

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to present to the reader a comprehensive overview on how the characteristics of grocery products and apparel products influence the customer behavior and the choice of an offline or an online sales channel within an omnichannel marketing strategy. This thesis takes a company’s point of view in order to investigate the reactions and the resulting marketing and channel strategies the different retailers apply while taking into account the varying customer behavior. In order to fulfill this purpose, we formulated and presented two research questions and three propositions that helped to investigate the chosen subject matter of this thesis. The research philosophy of this Master’s thesis is based on an interpretivist epistemological perspective and a subjectivist ontological view. The research conducted within this thesis has an exploratory nature. In addition, the deductive approach is used to study the research questions, while adopting a qualitative research method. The practical method employed in this thesis in order to fulfill the purpose is based on conducting multiple semi-structured, non-standardized interviews. The respondents and the companies they represent are divided according to the industry they belong to, namely the apparel retail or the grocery retail, and the geographically located in Europe. The final results are then gained by the combination of the primary data, yield from the interviews, and secondary data, collected during a literature search and an undertaken literature review. The contribution of this Master’s thesis is represented by an analysis that combines the theoretical perspectives and empirical findings. They provide an overview on how do the characteristics of products influence the customer behavior and the choice of an offline or an online sales channel within an omnichannel marketing strategy while focusing on apparel and grocery retailers in Europe. In addition, the findings also provide an overview on how the apparel and grocery retailers react on the varying behavior of their customers and based on this, what marketing and sales strategies they employ.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to identify the challenges that small garments manufacturers in Pakistan face in an IOR with large retailers regarding power dominance. The paper also seeks to examine how those garment manufacturers can use the Boundary Control Systems as a strategic response to power dominance. Methodology: The study is Qualitative, Exploratory in nature. It adapts critical realism as its research philosophy while developing the study with an Abductive Approach. The data for this paper was collected through related literature, articles, and a series of semi-structured interviews. The collected Empirical Data was analyzed using Creswell's Six Steps method. Findings: The paper explores the challenges faced by the small garments manufacturers in an IOR with large retailers in the Garments Industry of Pakistan, which include the struggle to have fair pricing, dominant behavior of the retailer, over-controlling inspections of the production, unavailability of resources to manage the production scale, overly strict sanctions or price cut by the retailers, and misunderstandings created by cultural and lingual diversity. These challenges almost always start from the Negotiation stage of the collaboration leaving the small garments manufacturer little to no room for mitigating them. The most effective strategy that the small garments manufacturers can adopt while dealing with power dominance. It is to apply Boundary Systems as early as the Negotiation Stage to prevent the retailer from imposing opportunistic behavior. Involving Boundary Spanners can be useful to have better control over the challenges. Originality and Contribution: The paper attempts to explore the fairly under-studied area of power dominance between small garments manufacturers and large retailers working in the developing garments manufacturing-supplying industry in Pakistan and how Boundary Systems can be used in this dynamic. A significant lack of awareness and studies were identified while researching for this study. Hence this paper can be considered a new and fresh way to look at the issue that has been previously undermined. And a contribution to the literature and future researchers to further the studies in this area.

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social networking sites and is attracting the interest of retailers as an effective way to interact with consumers. The purpose of this study was to examine: 1) determinants and impacts of Pinterest consumer experiences. Specifically, this study examined the impacts of retailer reputation, trust, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness on Pinterest consumer experiences on retailer SNS. 2) To identify the impacts of Pinterest consumer experiences on consumer satisfaction, behavioral intention, and online retailer relationship. The instrument used existing scales drawn from the literature. A consumer panel (n = 300) of Pinterest users that connect to apparel retailers was used to collect data through an online consumer panel. Reputation is positively related to trust and to perceived ease of use. Perceived ease of use and usefulness significantly affected retailer Pinterest consumer experiences. The impact of Pinterest consumer experiences on satisfaction and behavior intention was positive and significant. Satisfaction and behavior intention also are significantly related to online retailer relationship. Results and business implications are discussed, as well are limitations and future research.

Aim: The aim of this thesis is to analyse the influence of social media on fast fashion e-commerce multinational businesses and to identify the aims of Corporations using social media and why they adopt it as a marketing strategy to meet their long term objectives.   Methodology Approach:  This research study utilised a qualitative approach which comprises of primary and secondary data in order to conduct research and gather empirical evidence to evaluate the research aims and questions and to fill the gap that previous researches have not sufficiently covered. This thesis involved the use of a multiple case study by interviewing four international fast fashion companies based in Sweden, Stockholm. These companies are Bik Bok, River Island, Monki and Vero Moda. The researcher used a face to face interview method and telephone method. In total ten (10) interviews have been conducted.   Findings: The main finding of this research study is that the four e-commerce companies employed social media as a marketing strategy. Through thorough analysis it was found that Instagram was the most dominant of all social media platform. The use of social media marketing is vital for these fast fashion e-commerce businesses as they can have direct contact with their customers, attract new customers and to get to know their target market. These four companies opened an e-commerce business to offer product datasheet and to expand market for niche products. However, social media have also influenced few of these e-commerce businesses by the use of word of mouth.   Limitations: The limitation of this study is the lack of having the perspective of managers in the department of social media. The work could have been improved if the researcher was able to be in contact with those people in order to have a better validation of this research study. Moreover, there were inadequate resources or authors that have specifically covered the influenced of social media on fast fashion e-commerce firms and how they operate.  This could be seen as the research gap.   Suggestions For Further Research: As this research study only covers the influence of social media on fast fashion e-commerce businesses.Further study can be conducted on the perspective of fast fashion e-commerce customer’s perspective. Moreover, a bigger sampling of respondents can be collected rather than only collecting data from 2 or 3 people from each company. There might be a possibility if the chosen sampling  was bigger; the  researcher could have  had more  concrete  and solid research study.

Esta Dissertação de mestrado tem como objetivo identificar e analisar junto ao varejo como é feita a gestão da sua marca corporativa. Tanto a gestão de marcas, quanto sua aplicação no varejo, são temas novos e em evolução, que não apresentam um modelo único e consolidado. Muitos autores se complementam e ampliam o conceito de marca. Para essa dissertação foi considerada a gestão da marca em um nível estratégico que possa até orientar as decisões corporativas. Foi realizado um estudo de caso com o varejista Magazine Luiza que tem um reconhecido trabalho em marca. O estudo mostrou que o conjunto de elementos, e o enfoque que podem ser atribuidos à gestão de marcas na empresa se equiparam as variáveis do estudo. Assim, mesmo a marca sendo tratada em alguns momentos no nível tático/operacional e em outros no estratégico, pode-se dizer que houve uma afinidade muito grande entre a prática e a teoria. Existiu concordância em muitos fatos e o caso efetivamente trouxe contribuições e confirmações. / This work has as objective to identify and to analyze to the retail as the corporate brand management is made. As much the brand management, how much its application in the retail, is new subjects and in evolution, that does not present only consolidated model. Many authors is complement and extend the brand concept. For this dissertation the brand management in a strategic level was considered that has guided the corporate decisions. A study of case with the Magazine Luiza who has a recognized brand work. The study it showed that the set of elements, and the approach that can be attributed to the brand management in the company if equalize the variable of the study. Thus, exactly the treated brand being at some moments in operational the tactical level and others in the strategical one, can be said that it had a very great affinity between the practical one and the theory. Agreement in many facts existed and the case effectively brought contributions and confirmations.