In this thesis, we study the statistical issues in lost sales inventory systems, focusing on the complexity arising from the stochastic demand. We model the demand by the Zero Inflated Poisson (ZIP) distribution. The maximum likelihood estimator of the ZIP parameters taking censoring into account are derived separately for the newsvendor and the (s, S) inventory systems. We also investigate the effect of the estimation errors on the optimal policies and their costs. We observe from a simulation study that the MLE taking censoring into account performed the best in terms of cost as well as policy among various estimates. We then proceed to develop a Bayesian dynamic updating scheme of the ZIP parameters. It is applied to the newsvendor system. We perform a simulation study to investigate the advantage of the Bayesian updating approach over the traditional MLE approach. We conclude that the Bayesian pproach offers a better learning technique when one lacks of good understanding of the demand pattern in the first few periods. Since inventory policy affects the information acquisition and-the demand distribution updating process, how to determine the optimal inventory policy when the demand distribution is yet to be learned is the focus of the latter part of the thesis. We investigate the effect of demand censoring on the optimal policy in newsvendor inventory models with general parametric demand distribution and unknown parameter values. We provide theoretical proof of the conjecture that it is better off to adopt a higher than the myopic optimal policy in the initial periods when demand is learned in a censoring system. We show that the newsvendor problem with observable lost sales reduces to a sequence of single-period problems while the newsvendor problem with unobservable lost sales requires a dynamic analysis. We explore the economic rationality for this observation and illustrate it with numerical examples.

This paper identifies, analyzes and interprets key challenges that e-retailers face when they decide to expand their e-business into a new market. The main topics are the cross-border factors and e-commerce strategies based on theories from previous studies to drive profitable growth. The paper illustrates the case study of an e-retail company, Dateks, in expansion in the Baltic countries. The findings show that the localization strategy in e-retail companies is more highly used when expanding to a new market. The challenge for an e-retailer in expansion is to be cost-effective.

This study investigates the relationship between three types of retail, Big Box, traditional and online retail, and their transportation related emissions. The study takes a comprehensive approach by examining both the consumer and freight emissions associated with each retail type. The retail environment has been evolving dramatically over the past 60 years, and this has many effects on an urban environment that are important for urban planners to understand. Although retail can influence the city in many different ways, this study isolates transportation. Using case studies in the Greater Toronto Area and the Transportation Tomorrow Survey, a scenario model is applied to compare the retail types. The key influences examined in the scenarios that alter consumer related emissions are return rate, the number of items bought, trips where no items are bought, trip chaining and browsing before buying online. The key influences on freight transportation are the not at home delivery scenario and the number of items delivered. The results show that as a base case, Big Box retail has the largest emissions, traditional retail the second largest and online retail the smallest emissions. Consumer transportation has a larger impact on the total emissions than freight transportation, which is the main reason Big Box retail has the largest emissions. However, the various scenarios examined demonstrate that the key influence can have a very large impact on the results, making it difficult to conclusively say Big Box retail has the largest emissions associated with it. Conclusions that can be drawn from this study for urban planners are that for physical retail, traditional style retail tends to have smaller emissions. As well, the key influences, in particular those associated with consumer behavior, have the potential to greatly reduce emissions. Therefore, strategies to influence consumer behavior should be explored.

This dissertation explores poor retail food access in low-income, class-segregated communities through a social justice lens. Disadvantaged communities with poor food access—often called ‘food deserts’—have received ample scholarly attention, however the problem has yet to be analyzed from a normative, critical perspective. For this research, I use the case study of two communities in Kingston, Ontario’s North End, whose retail food geography changed significantly between 2006 and 2009. Critical political economy is my primary theoretical framework. I conducted forty-two qualitative interviews with key informants, four focus groups (three with low-income North Kingston residents and one with elderly Kingston residents), two door-to-door surveys in Rideau Heights, archival research, and I attended public meetings around a grocery store closure in the North End. I advance several research findings based on my results. Most broadly, I argue that the food desert problem represents capital’s ability to shape the ‘everyday geographies’ of simple, mundane activities like food shopping through the manipulation of the urban built environment. As such, capital is able to distribute the costs and burdens of food procurement in ways that reproduce class relations and class contempt to suite the dynamics of capitalist accumulation. I propose three interpretations of poor retail food access as a social injustice: (1) poor access represents the unequal and disproportionate allocation of burdens and costs of food acquisition on those with the fewest resources to mitigate these costs; (2) class disparity is inherently supported by urban governance systems that protect the interests of capital, therefore scaled-up retail capital is not accountable to residents of communities or their non-economic needs or wishes; and (3) the consolidated retail food geography of North American cities deprives low-income people of freedom, choice and dignity that is often embodied in the act of enjoying a ‘normal’ middle-class shopping experience. In the transition to a post-capitalist retail food geography, therefore, activists should abandon a romantic notion that low-income people should drive the change by somehow adopting a more agrarian lifestyle or lead the food system re-localization agenda – change driven by desperation rather than personal values. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-23 16:02:39.366

This study was an evaluation of the change management strategy implemented at the Foschini Retail Organization. An explanatory study was conducted by drawing up a case study and thereafter comparing the initiatives taken in the case study to an ideal change process model. In order to conduct a more focused design only four factors updating on the change management process were considered. These factors were :The nature of organizational change and the philosophy behind the Foschini Retail Academy; The need to develop a change approach which is suitable for the organizational specific context; The managerial and personal status designed by a successful change agent; The difference between the design of recipe - driven or formulaic approaches to change implementation and more context - specific approaches. Information for the case study was mainly obtained from interviews and focus groups. The problem matching technique was performed the case study, where strategy implementation was compared to those recommended in literature. It was found that there was effective change planning and communication. The change management process was tailored to suit the organization's specific context. The change agent had to have strong managerial and leadership status. The senior management team at Foschini had identified specific outputs that they expected after the role out of the academy and thereby careful emphasis and plan went into the context - specific approaches to the change process. The management team at Foschini had taken all aspects into account when designing the change strategy as recommended, by information gathered from literature and certain areas in communication and planning that needed to be implemented. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

The exploration of developing digital components and integrating technology with design informs a new model for retail design. This model responds to its users and lets them engage more with the space than the traditional retail stores. It also provides an experiential space informing customers in more attractive interactive ways. Advances in computing technology and software, along with new ways to configure and display these systems, have made it possible to create a new generation of immersive environments. This new environment, which is integrated with design, gives more freedom to users. According to the more links and connections this immersive environments creates, It provides a more liberated environment that is free from place and time and engages more people to attend to the space and be a part of that. Equipping the retail with digital components makes it accessible for people to interact with each other and get any information they want. As a result, interactive retail space relies less on materials and locations and more on social and technical capabilities.

No description available.

The focus of this thesis is on the internal and external environments of retail stores, and their contribution to retail branding from marketing and design perspectives. The retail industry in the postwar period and in particular since the 1980s has grown rapidly creating new store formats, new locations and new markets; retail brands have become some of the most powerful in the UK. The retail store now forms a visually engaging, three dimensional material and symbolic environment, where the brand merges with detailed store design. Both marketing and design initiatives have had a significant role in these developments, and consequently informed the distinctive interdisciplinary approach to the research journey. The body of work draws on nine publications, from an initial exploratory paper in 2003 to the final piece of work in 2010. The journey is characterized by its critical engagement with qualitative methodology, and an increasing awareness of the value of visual methods in the field. This contributed to a different understanding of the internal spaces of the store from a consumer perspective and the co-creative possibilities of retail design. As the research journey progressed, the contribution of the store to the retail brand was extended to its place in the external, urban environment. This contributed to understanding the significance of the building to the retail brand, through prestigious new buildings but also the re-use and regeneration of commercial buildings and their meaningful connections with the past. It is in this context that the body of work contributes new knowledge of the relationship between design, branding and experience in retail environments in which the design of the building, both internally and in its local context provide new opportunities to communicate to, and create experiences with consumers.

No description available.

Pharmacy in South Africa changed dramatically the past decade. Legislative changes include the amendment of The Pharmacy Act in 2003 allowing for nonpharmacists to own pharmacies. This opened the door for national chain stores to change their business model by including a dispensary in their retail service offerings. The regulation of medicine prices impacted the profitability of the pharmacy industry. This caused a double edge sword to retail pharmacy – not only do they need to compete with national supermarkets on front shop products, their products, namely scheduled medication also are regulated in dispensaries. In an environment of rapid change and shortened product and business model lifecycles, the future profit streams from existing operations are uncertain. Businesses need to consistently seek out new opportunities and therefore firms may benefit from adopting an entrepreneurial orientation. Entrepreneurial orientation of retail pharmacists operating in corporate and independent pharmacies’ might play a role in survival of pharmacy business as a professional services provider for which a fee may be charged. The entrepreneurial orientation of retail pharmacists in independent and corporate pharmacies is explored. A literature study on the field of Entrepreneurship is conducted. The term entrepreneurial orientation, consisting of five constructs, namely autonomy, innovation, pro-activeness, risk-taking and competitive aggressiveness is defined. Perceived success of the industry is defined in terms of growth and development. An entrepreneurial orientation questionnaire was distributed among retail pharmacists operating in corporate and independent environments. Both ratings of the constructs and their evaluation of the perceived success of the industry has been measured, analysed and reported. The results obtained from the questionnaire and the in-depth interviews in conjunction with the literature review are used to draw conclusions and make recommendations. / Thesis (MBA)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013