The determinants of retail productivity: a critical review of the evidence

This paper discusses the literature on the established determinants of productivity in the retail sector. It also draws attention to some neglected strands of research which provide useful insights into strategies that could allow productivity enhancements in this area of the economy. To date, very few attempts have been made to integrate different specialisms in order to explain what drives productivity in retail. Here this paper rectifies this omission by putting together studies from economics, geography, knowledge management and employment studies. It is the authors' view that quantitative studies of retail productivity should focus on total factor productivity in retailing as the result of competition/composition effects, planning regulations, information and communications technology, the multinational operation element and workforce skills. Further, the fact that retail firms possess advantages that are transferable between locations suggests that investment in strategies enhancing the transfer of explicit and tacit knowledge between and within businesses are crucial to achieve productivity gains.

Social Media Strategies in the Retail Sector: Analysis and Recommendations for Three Multi-National Retailers

During the last twenty years (1995-2015), the world of commerce has expanded beyond the traditional brick-and-mortar high street to a global shop front accessible to billions of users via the Worldwide Web (WWW). Consumers are now using the web to immerse themselves in virtual shop fronts, using Social Media (SM) to communicate and share product ideas with friends and family. Retail organisations recognise the need to develop and adapt their strategies to respond to the increasing use of SM. New goals must be set in order to identify how companies will integrate social media into current practices. This research aims to suggest an advisable and comprehensive SM strategy for companies operating in the global retail sector, based on an exploratory analysis of three multi-national retail organisations' existing SM strategies. This will be assessed in conjunction with a broader investigation into social media in the retail industry. From this, a strategy will be devised to improve internal and external communication as well as knowledge management through the use of social media. Findings suggest that the use of SM within the retail industry has dramatically improved collaboration and communication processes for organisations as they are now able to converse better with stakeholders and the tools are relatively simple to integrate and implement as they benefit one another.

Assessing energy consumption in supply chains

The paper addresses the transport activities and associated energy consumption involved in the production and supply of two products: jeans and yoghurt. In the case of jeans, the analysis is from the locations in which cotton is grown, to retail outlets in the UK; in the case of yoghurt, the analysis is from the supply of milk on farms, to retail outlets in France. The results show that the transport stages from the point of jeans manufacture to UK port are responsible for the greatest proportion of transport energy use per kilogram of jeans in the UK supply chain. In the case of the French yoghurt supply chains, the results indicate that each of the three transport stages from farm to third-party distribution centre consume approximately the same proportion of total freight transport energy. The energy used on the transport stage for yoghurt from third-party distribution centre to retail outlet varies depending on the type of retail outlet served. Far greater quantities of energy are used in transporting jeans than yoghurts from farm/field to retail outlet. This is explained by the distances involved in the respective supply chains. Both case studies demonstrate that the energy used by consumers transporting goods to their homes by car can be as great as total freight transport energy used in the supply chain from farm/field to retail outlet (per kilogram of product transported).

Energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions of different supply chains: a comparison of French, UK and Belgian cases

Freight transportation system is critical to economic activity but it carries significant environmental costs, notably GHG emissions and climate change : energy use and corresponding CO2 emissions is increasing faster in freight transport than in other sectors and this increase is primarily the result of increased trade. This paper compares the transport activities, associated energy consumption and CO2 emissions of different supply chains for a range of products in three countries: Belgium, France and United Kingdom. Among the products considered are furniture and ‘fruits & vegetables’. For each of these products, different supply chains, involving more or less transport activity and associated energy consumption are analysed in each country. The comparison highlights some of the main factors that influence GHG emissions for different supply chains and illustrates how they vary according to product and country of final distribution. In more detail, the paper addresses the main differences between the supply chains of these products namely, the origin of their sourcing, the logistical organisation between production and retail and different types of retail outlet. The origin of the sourcing impact is mainly related to distance. The impact of the logistical organisation between raw material and retail on GHG emissions is linked to the mode and vehicle choice and to the load factor. As for retail, the consumer trip emissions, between his home and the retail outlet, are also an important part of the whole supply chain emissions. It is worthwhile to notice that our goal in this project is to consider the whole supply chain, from production to consumption. Therefore a particular focus is put on the mobility behaviours of consumers purchasing the studied products during their shopping and dropping back home activities related to these products. Especially a web based survey has been conducted and the gathered results offer an opportunity for drawing a more detailed picture of the associated CO2 emissions. This paper uses the results of an ongoing research on supply chain energy efficiency, funded by ADEME (the French Energy Agency) through the French program on transport research (PREDIT). This research is based on a comprehensive review of the various approaches to quantifying the environmental impacts of supply chains together with data collection from a range of organisations including manufacturers, retailers and transport companies. We will first present the developed methodologies, then the results corresponding to each studied product will be described. A discussion of the potential application of the research approach to the wider debate about the environmental impact of freight transport and the scope for GHG emissions reduction targets to be achieved will be included.

Energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions of different supply chains: a comparison of French, UK and Belgian cases

Freight transportation system is critical to economic activity but it carries significant environmental costs, notably GHG emissions and climate change : energy use and corresponding CO2 emissions is increasing faster in freight transport than in other sectors and this increase is primarily the result of increased trade. This paper compares the transport activities, associated energy consumption and CO2 emissions of different supply chains for a range of products in three countries: Belgium, France and United Kingdom. Among the products considered are furniture and fruits & vegetables. For each of these products, different supply chains, involving more or less transport activity and associated energy consumption are analysed in each country. The comparison highlights some of the main factors that influence GHG emissions for different supply chains and illustrates how they vary according to product and country of final distribution. In more detail, the paper addresses the main differences between the supply chains of these products namely, the origin of their sourcing, the logistical organisation between production and retail and different types of retail outlet. The origin of the sourcing impact is mainly related to distance. The impact of the logistical organisation between raw material and retail on GHG emissions is linked to the mode and vehicle choice and to the load factor. As for retail, the consumer trip emissions, between his home and the retail outlet, are also an important part of the whole supply chain emissions. It is worthwhile to notice that our goal in this project is to consider the whole supply chain, from production to consumption. Therefore a particular focus is put on the mobility behaviours of consumers purchasing the studied products during their shopping and dropping back home activities related to these products. Especially a web based survey has been conducted and the gathered results offer an opportunity for drawing a more detailed picture of the associated CO2 emissions. This paper uses the results of an ongoing research on supply chain energy efficiency, funded by ADEME (the French Energy Agency) through the French program on transport research (PREDIT). This research is based on a comprehensive review of the various approaches to quantifying the environmental impacts of supply chains together with data collection from a range of organisations including manufacturers, retailers and transport companies. We will first present the developed methodologies, then the results corresponding to each studied product will be described. A discussion of the potential application of the research approach to the wider debate about the environmental impact of freight transport and the scope for GHG emissions reduction targets to be achieved will be included.

Understanding urban freight activity: key issues for freight planning

Using information gathered from some 30 UK surveys undertaken over the last 15 years, this paper provides planners with an understanding of road-based urban retail freight transport activity. The findings suggest that the average High Street business could expect up to 10 core goods and 7.6 service visits per week, in non-peak trading periods with 25% additional activity during the build up to Christmas. Vans (‘light goods vehicles’) were the dominant mode, responsible for 42% of delivery activity with a mean dwell time of 10 min. Where possible, load consolidation should be encouraged by methods such as Delivery and Servicing Plans and using out-of-town freight consolidation centres to bring in goods over the last mile in shared vehicles. Where this is not possible, loading bay monitoring and control, and preferred lorry routes can help manage the movement of vehicles in and out of dense urban areas. Service vehicle activity is a significant contributor to urban freight movements and often requires vehicles to be parked close to the premises being served. Centrally coordinating elements of service provision (e.g. for cleaning, equipment maintenance, recyclate collection), or providing improved, more flexible parking provision for service vehicles could be as or more beneficial in reducing overall freight impacts than focusing on core goods deliveries. In the case of the latter, ‘pay-as-you-leave’ car park charging systems could encourage short-stay service vehicles to park off-street.

Agent-Based Modeling of Deshopping Behaviour: A Single Shop Model with Multiple Deshoppers

Deshopping is rapidly turning into a modern day scourge for the retailers worldwide due to its prevalence and regularity. The presence of flexible return policies have made retail return management a real challenging issue for both the present and the future. In this study, we propose and develop a multi-agent simulation model for deshopper behavior in a single shop context. The background, theoretical underpinning, logical and computational model, experiment design and simulation results are reported and discussed in the paper.