The increasing diversity of consumers’ demand, as documented by the debate on the long tail of the distribution of sales volume across products, represents a challenge for retail stores. Recommender systems offer a tool to cope with this challenge. The recent developments in information technology and ubiquitous computing makes it feasible to move recommender systems from the on-line commerce, ...

In order to evaluate present and future retail packaging systems, it is necessary to review past fresh red meat (FRM) packaging systems. Prior to 1967, whole beef carcass shipments were traditionally made to retail outlets where carcasses were fabricated into retail items by butchers in individual stores. The "boxed beef" concept was introduced in 1967, dramatically changing beef processing, di...

Tobacco products are sold in approximately 375,000 US retail outlets, including convenience stores and pharmacies, which often sell energy-dense, low-nutrient foods and beverages. The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) increased authority over tobacco product sales and marketing, combined with declining smoking rates, provides an opportunity to transition tobacco retailers toward healthier ...

Retail store-based health clinics, which provide basic preventive services and diagnose and treat simple health ailments, have proliferated rapidly in recent years. Younger families and people that have difficulty accessing health care services--including the uninsured and minorities--are among the groups most likely to use these clinics. Still, in 2007, only 1.2 percent of U.S. families report...

IN BRIEF This article describes a study to gain insight into the utility and perceived feasibility of the American Diabetes Association's Diabetes Risk Test (DRT) implemented by nurse practitioners (NPs) in the retail clinic setting. The DRT is intended for those without a known risk for diabetes. Researchers invited 1,097 NPs working in the retail clinics of a nationwide company to participate...

Free sampling of information goods has become a common business practice in expectation of reducing consumers’ uncertainty of product quality and helping product diffusion, yet receiving limited investigation of how consumers process free sampling and online word-of-mouth (WOM) and its consequences on retail sales. In this research, we examine the impact of free sampling of information goods on...

BACKGROUND Private-sector retail drug outlets are often the first point of contact for common health ailments, including tuberculosis (TB). Systematic reviews on public-private mix (PPM) interventions for TB did not perform in-depth reviews specifically on engaging retail drug outlets and related stakeholders in the pharmaceutical sector. Our objective was to better understand the extent to whi...

In this paper, we construct a model incorporating the retail trader’s reluctance to sell into losses. We show that in this setup the informed trader always buys the asset when he receives a favorable signal. However, when the informed trader receives an unfavorable signal, he may not sell the asset if the signal is moderately bad and the retail trader is reluctant to realize losses. Hence the a...

Consumers are increasingly expecting retailers to provide them with information, products and services through multiple retail channels ranging from physical stores, catalogue to Website. However, there is currently a lack of understanding in what multi-channel shopping attributes consumers really value. This poses a challenge to retailers who are attempting to integrate their retail channels. ...

This paper reports on the development and findings of a research investigation using visual technologies to investigate comparisons into consumer responses of store-based and virtual retail environments. The visual technologies used were mobile headmounted and desk-bound eye-gaze tracking tools. Desk-bound tracking technologies have for some time been used in understanding consumer response in ...