Search Results (92)

Background: Digital transformation is increasingly present in modern logistics, especially in the context of sustainability and circularity pressures. The integration of technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), and automated platforms involves not only infrastructure but also a strategic vision, a flexible organizational culture, and the ability to support decisions through artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems. Methods: This study proposes an extended conceptual model using structural equation modelling (SEM) to explore the relationships between five constructs: technological change, strategic and organizational readiness, transformation environment, AI-enabled decision configuration, and operational redesign. The model was validated based on a sample of 217 active logistics specialists, coming from sectors such as road transport, retail, 3PL logistics services, and manufacturing. The participants are involved in the digitization of processes, especially in activities related to operational decisions and sustainability. Results: The findings reveal that the analysis confirms statistically significant relationships between organizational readiness, transformation environment, AI-based decision processes, and operational redesign. Conclusions: The study highlights the importance of an integrated approach in which technology, organizational culture, and advanced decision support collectively contribute to the transition to digital and circular logistics chains. Full article

Against the background of intensifying human–land contradictions, evaluation of land use benefits and identification of obstacles are crucial for sustainable land management and socioeconomic development. Taking Henan Province as an example, this research employed the entropy weight method and TOPSIS model to assess the land use benefits across its cities from 2011 to 2020, a period of rapid land use transformation, analyzed their spatiotemporal evolution, and identified key obstacles via an obstacle degree model. The results showed the following. (1) The social land use benefits consistently exceeded the ecological and economic benefits, with steady improvements observed in both the individual and comprehensive benefits. Spatially, the benefits showed a “one city dominant” pattern, decreasing gradually from the central region to the south, north, east, and west, with this spatial gradient further intensifying over time. (2) Economic factors were the primary obstacles, with significantly higher obstruction degrees than social or ecological factors. The main obstacles were the general budget revenue of government finance per unit land area, domestic garbage removal volume, and total retail sales of social consumer goods per unit land area. (3) The policy implications focus on strengthening regional differentiated development by leveraging Zhengzhou’s core role to boost the land-based economic benefits, integrating social–ecological strengths with agricultural modernization, and promoting “core–periphery linkage” to narrow gaps through targeted industrial and infrastructure strategies. This study could provide region-specific insights for sustainable land management in agricultural provinces undergoing rapid urbanization. Full article

In the evolving digital marketplace, consumer behaviour is increasingly shaped by green marketing strategies, particularly in the context of sustainable consumption. This study aims to examine the mechanisms through which green content marketing and green affiliate marketing influence green variety-seeking shopping behaviours, with particular attention to the role of green shopping motives and the effectiveness of marketing strategies. As traditional retail methods face limitations, digital marketing channels provide new avenues to engage consumers through personalized and dynamic content. Using the Theory–Context–Characteristics–Methodology (TCCM) framework, this research systematically examines the existing literature to identify key theories, contexts, characteristics, and methodologies relevant to variety-seeking behaviours towards green products. The study explores the psychological and behavioural drivers behind shopping choices, offering insights into why consumers exhibit variety-seeking behaviour when purchasing green products. The results indicate that effective green content and affiliate marketing drive variety-seeking behaviour in green shopping, with consumer motives serving as a key mediating factor. The conceptual model developed in this study provides a structured understanding of how modern marketing strategies shape consumer preferences and engagement with green products. This study offers a future research agenda and practical implications for marketers and retailers. By understanding these influences, businesses can refine their marketing strategies to strengthen green shopping motives, encourage sustainable consumption over traditional consumption, and adapt to the dynamic retail landscape. Full article

This study investigates how the rise of commission-free FinTech platforms and the introduction of fractional trading (FT) have altered trading behavior and order book dynamics in the NASDAQ equity market. Leveraging high-frequency ITCH data from highly capitalized stocks—AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, and TSLA—we analyze market microstructure changes surrounding the implementation of FT. Our empirical findings show a statistically significant increase in price levels, average tick sizes, and price volatility in the post-FinTech-FT period, alongside elevated price impact factors (PIFs), indicating steeper and less liquid limit order books. These shifts reflect greater participation by non-professional investors with limited order placement precision, contributing to noisier price discovery and heightened intraday risk. The altered liquidity landscape and increased volatility raise important questions about the resilience and informational efficiency of modern equity markets under democratized access. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on retail trading and provide actionable insights for market regulators and exchanges evaluating the design and oversight of evolving trading mechanisms. Full article

The retail industry faces increasing challenges in matching supply with demand due to evolving consumer behaviors, market volatility, and supply chain disruptions. While existing approaches employ statistical and machine learning methods for demand forecasting, they often fail to capture complex temporal dependencies and lack the ability to simultaneously optimize inventory decisions. This paper proposes a novel multi-agent deep reinforcement learning framework that jointly optimizes demand forecasting and inventory management in retail supply chains, leveraging data from IoT sensors, RFID tracking systems, and smart shelf monitoring devices. Our approach combines transformer-based sequence modeling for demand patterns with hierarchical reinforcement learning agents that coordinate inventory decisions across distribution networks. The framework integrates both historical sales data and real-time sensor measurements, employing attention mechanisms to capture seasonal patterns, promotional effects, and environmental conditions detected through temperature and humidity sensors. Through extensive experiments on large-scale retail datasets incorporating sensor network data, we demonstrate that our method achieves 18.2% lower forecast error and 23.5% reduced stockout rates compared with state-of-the-art baselines. The results show particular improvements in handling promotional events and seasonal transitions, where traditional methods often struggle. Our work provides new insights into leveraging deep reinforcement learning for integrated retail operations optimization and offers a scalable solution for modern sensor-enabled supply chain challenges. Full article

This paper proposes an innovative, intelligent shopping cart system with an interdisciplinary approach using Bluetooth low energy (BLE) beacons. The research integrates online and offline retail strategies by presenting campaigns and ads to the customers during in-store navigation. In a testing environment, BLE beacons are strategically positioned to monitor the purchasing process and deliver relevant insights to retailers. The technology anonymously logs customers’ locations and the duration of their browsing at each sales shelf. Through the analysis of client movement heatmaps, retailers may discern high-traffic zones and modify product placement to enhance visibility and sales. Additionally, the system provides an additional revenue model for store owners through location specific targeted ads displayed on a tablet mounted on the cart. Unlike previous BLE-based tracking solutions, this research bridges the gap between customer movement analytics and real-time targeted advertising in retail settings. The system achieved an accuracy of 82.4% when the aisle partition length was 3.00 m and 91.7% when the aisle partition length was 6.00 m. This system, which can generate additional income for store owners by generating 0.171 USD in a single test simulation as a result of displaying ads to three test customers in a two-partitioned aisle layout, offers a new and scalable business model for modern retailers. Full article

Reducing carbon emissions is of immense interest to most modern organizations striving for sustainability. Effective inventory management is crucial for achieving resource optimization and minimizing environmental impact. Very little work has been conducted up to this point on slowly declining, low-quality products with multi-level trade credit rules under the influence of carbon emissions. In this study, an inventory model is tailored specifically for imperfect and gradually deteriorating products with a multi-level trade credit policy. Further, the impact of carbon emissions on the retailer’s ordering strategies is also considered. To determine the optimal policy for supply chain partners, three trade credit instances with seven subcases are taken into consideration. To choose the best scenario out of ten cases, an algorithm is also developed. The model’s validity is illustrated through a numerical experiment and sensitivity analysis. This study is an innovative approach to balancing economic trade credit policy in sustainable supply chain management. Full article

As the complexity of modern-day retailing currently complicates businesses, a very key study area that has emerged is how sustainability initiatives can be complemented with brand equity and omnichannel operations. The specific purpose of this study is to investigate how brand equity mediates the relationship between sustainability practices and omnichannel operations—the focus being effective retail tactics in the current market. Sustainability, which includes social responsibility, environmental management, and moral business conduct, has become a key component of corporate strategy. In order to achieve operational efficiency and long-term profitability, businesses attempt to align with consumer values and address urgent societal issues through eco-friendly production methods, community participation, and sustainable sourcing. The study employs a quantitative research approach and uses the survey method to collect data from retail end users. This structured questionnaire was distributed to 474 adult consumers in Turkey and Cyprus, ensuring that the sample is representative at a 95% confidence level and a 5% margin of error. A simple mediation analysis was thus performed through ordinary least squares (OLS) path analysis to test the hypothesized mediating effect of brand equity. The result shows that brand equity partially mediates the relationship between sustainability and omnichannel performance, thus indicating that sustainability initiatives improve omnichannel effectiveness, both directly and indirectly, through strengthened brand perception. By demonstrating how multidimensional brand equity—which encompasses perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand awareness, and brand associations—influences customer behavior, the study adds something special to the body of current work. Full article

It is commonly assumed that information technology capabilities (ITCs) are instrumental in supply chain viability (SCV), despite negligible empirical evidence. Based on the dynamic resource-based view, this study explores how the SCV competitive advantage is influenced by the heterogeneous resource ITC through the internal operating capability postponement (POST). A quantitative survey was administered to 298 senior managers from retail manufacturing firms, to test hypotheses using hierarchical multiple regression analysis. The SPSS PROCESS Macro was used to determine the mediation and interaction effects of the dual-stage moderated-mediation model, identifying a positive correlation between ITC and POST strategies, highlighting that modern real-time data synchronization and on-demand customization IT systems are needed. POST strategies greatly improve SCV by enhancing operational flexibility, reactivity, and adaptability to dynamic market conditions. The moderators “market orientation” and “demand uncertainty” shape these relationships, emphasizing the need for firms to align their strategies with market dynamics and uncertainties. The research emphasizes the importance of valuable, rare, and inimitable resources in driving sustained competitive advantage. Practical implications suggest strategic investments in advanced IT systems and collaborative efforts in retail manufacturing firms are essential for optimizing supply chain processes. The results, discussion, implications, limitations, and suggestions for additional studies are addressed. Full article

The rapid advancement and widespread adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across diverse industries, including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, and retail, underscore the transformative potential of AI technologies. This necessitates the development of viable AI model marketplaces that facilitate the development, trading, and sharing of AI models across the pervasive industrial domains to harness and streamline their daily activities. These marketplaces act as centralized hubs, enabling stakeholders such as developers, data owners, brokers, and buyers to collaborate and exchange resources seamlessly. However, existing AI marketplaces often fail to address the demands of modern and next-generation application domains. Limitations in pricing models, standardization, and transparency hinder their efficiency, leading to a lack of scalability and user adoption. This paper aims to target researchers, industry professionals, and policymakers involved in AI development and deployment, providing actionable insights for designing robust, secure, and transparent AI marketplaces. By examining the evolving landscape of AI marketplaces, this paper identifies critical gaps in current practices, such as inadequate pricing schemes, insufficient standardization, and fragmented policy enforcement mechanisms. It further explores the AI model life-cycle, highlighting pricing, trading, tracking, security, and compliance challenges. This detailed analysis is intended for an audience with a foundational understanding of AI systems, marketplaces, and their operational ecosystems. The findings aim to inform stakeholders about the pressing need for innovation and customization in AI marketplaces while emphasizing the importance of balancing efficiency, security, and trust. This paper serves as a blueprint for the development of next-generation AI marketplaces that meet the demands of both current and future application domains, ensuring sustainable growth and widespread adoption. Full article

This paper presents a computer-vision-based approach designed to enhance product placement and sales strategies in physical retail stores through real-time analysis of customer behavior. Our method employs DeepSORT for tracking and YOLOv5 for object identification to generate heatmaps that illustrate consumer movement patterns and engagement levels across various retail locations. To precisely track customer paths, the procedure starts with the collection of video material, which is then analyzed. Customer interaction and traffic patterns across various retail zones are represented using heatmap visualization, which offers useful information about consumer preferences and product popularity. In order to maximize customer engagement and optimize the shopping experience, businesses may use the findings of this analysis to improve product placements, store layouts, and marketing strategies. With its low intervention requirements and scalable and non-intrusive solution, this system may be used in a variety of retail environments. This system offers a scalable and non-intrusive solution that requires minimal intervention, making it adaptable across different retail settings. Our findings demonstrate the approach’s effectiveness in identifying strategic areas for improvement and adapting retail environments based on real-time customer interaction data. This study underscores the potential of computer vision in retail analytics, enabling data-driven decisions that enhance both customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. This approach gives merchants useful data to develop more responsive, customized, and effective shopping experiences by providing a dynamic perspective of consumer behavior. Retailers may promote a modernized and customer-centered retail management strategy by using this creative application of computer vision to match marketing tactics and shop design with real consumer behaviors. Full article

Research on modern agri-food chains aims to enhance flexibility by analyzing supply chain aspects to identify improvement opportunities. A SWOT analysis of 39 agri-food sector organizations using a SWOT analysis organized using the PESTEL and MEETHS categories was conducted to evaluate the stakeholders’ needs in this sector of activity in Northern Portugal. Logistic regressions were used to compute inferential statistics, which were complemented with a qualitative analysis. Cooperatives and primary sector companies often claim superior product quality without clear evidence, while corporations integrated into competitive national markets, like those with smoked products, adapt better to dietary trends. Small- and medium-sized enterprises struggle with competitive wages, leading to high turnover and difficulty retaining skilled workers. High costs hinder many organizations, particularly cooperatives, from adopting modern communication technologies affecting competitiveness. Challenges include identifying market opportunities and managing global competition for raw materials, like wild fish. Fishing and meat sectors depend heavily on modern distribution and are dominated by large retailers. Low labor costs boost competitiveness but reflect the struggle to add value. Larger organizations are more optimistic though many face challenges with the cost and volatility of key products, like pork and milk. This study offers the following key recommendations: invest in technology and innovation while balancing short-term gains with long-term sustainability; strengthen strategic planning and collaboration among corporations, cooperatives, associations, and academic institutions; and adapt to regulatory changes, invest in market and technological capabilities, and address resource limitations. Research and collaboration with policymakers and academic institutions will support tailored solutions, enabling the sector to anticipate challenges and capitalize on opportunities. Full article

The present study aimed to estimate the influence of the modern lifestyle, known also as the Westernized lifestyle, on the eating and food shopping behavior of omnichannel retail consumers in Athens. To collect the required data, this study constructed a questionnaire, which was answered by 130 adults, aged 25–40, who lived in Athens and were omnichannel retail consumers. It was found that the Greek diet has begun to adopt Western characteristics, presenting an increase in the consumption of fast and convenience food. However, the population has not moved dramatically away from the Mediterranean diet, which constitutes their traditional food model. As for Greek shopping behavior, this study indicated the factors that affected consumers when purchasing food products. The findings may help food managers to understand food consumers’ behavior and improve their strategies so as to better meet the needs of Greek individuals. Full article

With the increasing frequency of various uncertainties and disturbances faced by urban systems, urban resilience is one of the vital components of the sustainability of modern cities. An indicator system is constructed to measure the resilience levels of the Yichang–Jingzhou–Jingmen–Enshi (YJJE) urban agglomeration during 2010–2023 based on four domains—economy, ecology, society, and infrastructure. This paper analyzes the spatiotemporal differentiation of resilience in YJJE in conjunction with the entropy weight method, Getis–Ord Gi* model, and robustness testing. Then, the factor contribution model is used to discern key driving elements of urban resilience. Finally, the CA-Markov model is implemented to predict urban resilience in 2030. The results reveal that the values of resilience in YJJE increase at a rate of 3.25%/a and continue to rise, with the differences among cities narrowing over the examined period. Furthermore, the urban resilience exhibits a significant spatially heterogeneity distribution, with Xiling, Wujiagang, Xiaoting, Yidu, Zhijiang, Dianjun, Dangyang, Yuan’an, Yiling, and Duodao being the high-value agglomerations of urban resilience, and Hefeng, Jianli, Shishou, and Wufeng being the low-value agglomerations of urban resilience. The marked heterogeneity of resilience in the YJJE urban agglomeration reflects the disparity in economic progress across the study area. The total amount of urban social retail, financial expenditure per capita, GDP per capita, park green space area, urban disposable income per capita, and number of buses per 10,000 people surface as the key influencing factors in relation to urban resilience. Finally, the levels of resilience among cities within YJJE will reach the medium level or higher than medium level in 2030. Xiling, Wujiagang, Xiaoting, Zhijiang, Dianjun, Dangyang, and Yuan’an will remain significant hot spots of urban resilience, while Jianli will remain a significant cold spot. In a nutshell, this paper can provide scientific references and policy recommendations for policymakers, urban planners, and researchers on the aspects of urban resilience and sustainable city. Full article

This study investigates the critical role of information systems and digital transformation in advancing sustainable supply chain management. Companies are increasingly adopting sustainable policies to protect the environment, enhance societal wellbeing, and drive economic development. By digitalizing their processes, they achieve significant operational improvements and boost business performance. Information systems are now integral to supply chains, supporting diverse processes and facilitating excellence in digital transformation and sustainable development. However, research in this area has been limited, focusing primarily on the environmental pillar. This study aims to explore the relationship between supply chain digitalization and the adoption of comprehensive sustainability practices. The research employs a qualitative methodology, including a comparative case study analysis of a modern 3PL company, a retailer, and a producer of construction materials. The findings reveal that the strategic integration of digital transformation and sustainable policies within organizational contexts is vital for enhancing business performance and achieving operational excellence. Effective use of information systems and resources enables companies to amplify their economic, social, and environmental impact, fostering an environmentally friendly image, strengthening societal relationships, and increasing market share. This study underscores the importance of a holistic approach to sustainability, driven by information systems and Industry 4.0 technologies, positioning companies as leaders in sustainable supply chain management. Full article