The Retail Market for Bednets in Kenya: How Well Is It Working?

Background Achieving the goals set by Roll Back Malaria and the Government of Kenya for use of insecticide treated bednets (ITNs) will require that the private retail market for nets and insecticide treatments grow substantially. This paper applies some basic concepts of market structure and pricing to a set of recently-collected retail price data from Kenya in order to answer the question, “How well are Kenyan retail markets for ITNs working?” Methods Data on the availability and prices of ITNs at a wide range of retail outlets throughout Kenya were collected in January 2002, and vendors and manufacturers were interviewed regarding market structure. Findings Untreated nets are manufactured in Kenya by a number of companies and are widely available in large and medium-sized towns. Availability in smaller villages is limited. There is relatively little geographic price variation, and nets can be found at competitive prices in towns and cities. Marketing margins on prices appear to be within normal ranges. No finished nets are imported. Few pre-treated nets or net+treatment combinations are available, with the exception of the subsidized Supanet/Power Tab combination marketed by a donor-funded social marketing project. Conclusions Retail markets for untreated nets in Kenya are well established and appear to be competitive. Markets for treated nets and insecticide treatment kits are not well established. The role of subsidized ITN marketing projects should be monitored to ensure that these projects support, rather than hinder, the development of retail markets.

The quest for growth in the German organic food retail market: Historical trends, current strategies, and future outlook

This paper aims to provide strategies for the organic supermarket chain “Alnatura” to shape the demand and its market share of the organic food & beverage (F&B) market in Germany within the next five years. Through the historic evolution and the current market assessment of Germany, compared to a benchmark country (US), as well as prospective trends in Germany, reasons and opportunities for market growth are evaluated. In addition, an industry attractiveness, competitor and company analysis is executed. Based on those findings and a conducted survey, suggestions to adjust Alnatura´s current business strategies are deduced and finally examined on its risk and feasibility.

Organized Retail Market Boom and the Indian Society

IT and related services played a major role for India’s current 9.2. GDP growth. Organized retailing in India is one more example for its open economy. The IT industries where able develop a demand for Indian talents all over the world and improved their living standards. It directly impacts only a small minority of Indian population while organized retail affects every single Indian and every sector of Indian society. The paper gives a glimpse of the slow evolution of retail market over the years in India and its contribution for economic growth. The likely positive impact of this revolution in different sectors is enumerated. Paper addresses its ability to manipulate consumption pattern of society, increased customer satisfaction and likely change in the market shares of the different types of sellers. Paper discusses its flip sides like increasing social tension among families below poverty line and greater loss of self employment opportunities by this revolution. The main theme of enquiry of this paper is what it all means for the Indian society.

Pricing and competition in the Swedish retail market for electricity

Sweden, together with Norway, Finland and Denmark, have created a multi-national electricity market called NordPool. In this market, producers and retailers of electricity can buy and sell electricity, and the retailers then offers this electricity to end consumers such as households and industries. Previous studies have shown that pricing at the NordPool market is functioning quite well, but no other study has to my knowledge studied if pricing in the retail market to consumers in Sweden is well functioning. If the market is well functioning, with competition and low transaction costs when changing electricity retailer, we would expect that a homogeneous good such as electricity would be sold at the approximately same price, and that price changes would be highly correlated, in this market. Thus, the aim of this study is to test whether the price of Vattenfall, the largest energy firm in the Swedish market, is highly correlated to the price of other firms in the Swedish retail market for electricity. Descriptive statistics indicate that the price offered by Vattenfall is quite similar to the price of other firms in the market. In addition, regression analysis show that the correlation between the price of Vattenfall and other firms is as high as 0.98.

Evaluation of mango loss (Mangifera indica L.) in the retail market of Botucatu-SP

Losses in the mango commercialization process in Brazil has reduced its offer to the consumer. The present study aims at determining these losses in different purchase sites of the retail market, its causes and suggestions for reducing them. Twenty two retail points, including supermarkets, greengroceries and free fair were selected in Botucatu, state of São Paulo, Brazil. The total amount commercialized was 114 ton/year. The following average losses were verified for each mango variety: 'Tommy Atkins'(11, 5%), Haden (12, 4%) and 12, 7% for other varieties. The total loss in retail market reached US$ 25.231,00 corresponding to 14 tons. The average loss percentage observed is compatible with previous studies running in other cities. The results suggest the need of better management, the exposure of the fruit to the consumer, technology in the transportation of the fruits and most appropriate storage for maintaining the quality and the reduction of losses. The results show the need of higher investment in technical personnel reskilling in fruit and vegetable sector.

Consumer price knowledge in the German retail market

Price knowledge as a construct has been one of the top behavioral pricing themes in the last four decades, especially in the Anglo-American literature. In Germany, scientists have paid relatively little attention to this topic during the last 15 years – with some notable exceptions. Therefore, this study analyzes German consumers' price knowledge and, by doing so, replicates and extends existing international work. After reviewing earlier attempts at assessing the construct, a measure is developed for the price estimation error “PEE”, based on explicit price knowledge stored in long-term memory. Results, including data from about 1,000 consumers on 69 products from a German retail chain, indicate that price knowledge in Germany is relatively low. Based on that observation, implications for the management are discussed.

The Role of Price Floor in a Differentiated Product Retail Market

The ability of a manufacturer to enhance competition among its retailers by imposing a price floor was recently introduced in the literature. The purpose of this article is to revisit this anti-collusive explanation of the retail price maintenance in a more general model in which we introduce asymmetric retailers. We find that a manufacturer can amplify the retail market’s competition by imposing a price foor when retailers sell differentiated products. This result contradicts the prevailing concept of retail price maintenance.

How to optimize the traditional retail market for FMCG sector?

Field lab: Entrepreneurial and innovative ventures

Analysis of different scenarios for residential energy management under existing retail market structure

This paper presents an analysis of a residential energy management scheme under existing retail market structure with the integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage systems. In this paper, different scenarios are analyzed with an aim of achieving the most cost-effective solutions for the integration of solar PV and battery energy storage systems. The main idea behind these analyses is to obtain a grid independent residential energy management system through the reduction of purchasing energy from the existing power grid. The results from the analysis of different scenarios for a typical Australian house demonstrate that the shortage of energy during the high loads and excess of energy during the higher output of solar PV system can be reduced with the design of a proper energy management scheme employing a transactive energy management framework.

Assessment of retail and wholesale market competition in the Illinois electric industry /

In this report, the Commission examines developments relevant to the competitiveness of the retail and wholesale markets. In the retail market, two key indicators of activity are examined: The first indicator is the rate of customer switching from bundled services to "delivery services." Customers taking delivery services are either purchasing power and energy from ARES or are purchasing power and energy from the host utility on an "unbundled" basis under the utility's delivery services tariffs. Currently, bundled power sales mainly consist of sales to customers under the Sec. 16-110 "Power Purchase Option" (PPO). The second indicator of retail activity presented in this report is the number of suppliers active in the State's nine service territories.

Passenger experience and their implications for airports retail environment design

This project develops new knowledge on the full range of activities and interactions that make up airport passengers' retail experiences. The practical application of this new knowledge will improve the design of airport retail environments and will, in turn, improve passenger experiences, leading to further growth in the airport retail market. The novel methodological approach developed allowed for a new and deeper understanding of how passengers actually experience airport retail environments. Four significant outcomes were discovered: (i) the categorisation of the full range of retail activities and interactions passengers actually undertake, (ii) a new understanding of how passengers use and experience their free airport time, (iii) two new passenger market segments, and (iv) two passenger retail experience tools, with these identifying the broad range of airport-specific factors which influence passengers retail experiences.

Learning dynamic prices in multiseller electronic retail markets with price sensitive customers, stochastic demands, and inventory replenishments

In this paper, we use reinforcement learning (RL) as a tool to study price dynamics in an electronic retail market consisting of two competing sellers, and price sensitive and lead time sensitive customers. Sellers, offering identical products, compete on price to satisfy stochastically arriving demands (customers), and follow standard inventory control and replenishment policies to manage their inventories. In such a generalized setting, RL techniques have not previously been applied. We consider two representative cases: 1) no information case, were none of the sellers has any information about customer queue levels, inventory levels, or prices at the competitors; and 2) partial information case, where every seller has information about the customer queue levels and inventory levels of the competitors. Sellers employ automated pricing agents, or pricebots, which use RL-based pricing algorithms to reset the prices at random intervals based on factors such as number of back orders, inventory levels, and replenishment lead times, with the objective of maximizing discounted cumulative profit. In the no information case, we show that a seller who uses Q-learning outperforms a seller who uses derivative following (DF). In the partial information case, we model the problem as a Markovian game and use actor-critic based RL to learn dynamic prices. We believe our approach to solving these problems is a new and promising way of setting dynamic prices in multiseller environments with stochastic demands, price sensitive customers, and inventory replenishments.

Reinforcement learning applications in dynamic pricing of retail markets

In this paper, we investigate the use of reinforcement learning (RL) techniques to the problem of determining dynamic prices in an electronic retail market. As representative models, we consider a single seller market and a two seller market, and formulate the dynamic pricing problem in a setting that easily generalizes to markets with more than two sellers. We first formulate the single seller dynamic pricing problem in the RL framework and solve the problem using the Q-learning algorithm through simulation. Next we model the two seller dynamic pricing problem as a Markovian game and formulate the problem in the RL framework. We solve this problem using actor-critic algorithms through simulation. We believe our approach to solving these problems is a promising way of setting dynamic prices in multi-agent environments. We illustrate the methodology with two illustrative examples of typical retail markets.

Significance of Biogenic Amines in Cold-Smoked Fish and Their Relation to Microbiological Characteristics of Products Available in Portuguese Retail Markets

Studies on microbial characterization of cold-smoked salmon and salmon trout during cold storage were performed on samples available in the Portuguese market. Samples were also classified microbiologically according to guidelines for ready-to-eat (RTE) products. Further investigations on sample variability and microbial abilities to produce tyramine and histamine were also performed. The coefficient of variation for viable counts of different groups of microorganisms of samples collected at retail market point was high in the first 2 wk of storage, mainly in the Enterobacteriaceae group and aerobic plate count (APC), suggesting that microbiological characteristics of samples were different in numbers, even within the same batch from the same producer. This variation seemed to be decreased when storage and temperature were controlled under lab conditions. The numbers of Enterobacteriaceae were influenced by storage temperature, as indicated by low microbial numbers in samples from controlled refrigeration. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and Enterobacteriaceae were predominant in commercial products, a significant percentage of which were tyramine and less histamine producers. These results might be influenced by (1) the technological processes in the early stages of production, (2) contamination during the smoking process, and (3) conditions and temperature fluctuations during cold storage at retail market point of sale.