Robert Zimmermann

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Research Associate at University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria

The exogenous shock of COVID-19 strongly challenged Greek retail, especially in small and micro-sized enterprises (SMiEs). In particular, the decline of customer visits in physical retail stores caused by lockdowns and other restrictive measures led to a business threatening reduction of sales. As a result, adjusting business model elements became...

This paper investigates the application of people tracking technologies within brick-and-mortar stores, offering a literature review on the various use cases these technologies address. The study identifies five primary use cases: “Customer flow analysis”, “Customer/Employee behavior analysis”, “Shopping space management”, “General people counting...

Global food supply chains are becoming increasingly complex and the demand for transparency and traceability in food is growing. As a result, there is increasing pressure on the food industry to track food from production to sale. However, current traceability systems are inadequate, with blockchain technology offering a promising approach to food...

Literature reviews constitute an indispensable component of research endeavors; however, they often prove laborious and time-intensive. This study explores the potential of ChatGPT, a prominent large-scale language model, to facilitate the literature review process. By contrasting outcomes from a manual literature review with those achieved using C...

The application of Data Analytics (DA) in Supply Chain Management (SCM) provides a plethora of opportunities for improving the performance, efficiency, and resilience of organizations by predicting the behaviour of the supply chain network. In this regard, the use of complex DA approaches that involve the combination of multiple Machine Learning (M...

The application of data analytics in management has become a crucial success factor for the modern enterprise. To apply analytical models, appropriately prepared data must be available. Preparing this data can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and error prone. In the current era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Large Language Models (LLMs) like OpenAI...

Retail is facing several challenges, resulting in the constant need to adopt. One of such recent adoptions is a new form of physical retail called staffless stores. These stores do not employee staff and instead use state-of-the-art technologies to compensate the lack of staff. This leads to a completely different shopping experience. However, as w...

Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a powerful tool in the industry, offering benefits such as enhanced learning outcomes, improved skill acquisition, and deeper engagement across various fields [1]. However, the absence of a standardized approach and guidelines for VR system operation poses a challenge when implementing interaction types and user...

Luxury products are expensive goods of high quality that are produced in limited quantities. Unsurprisingly, the problem of counterfeiting is especially high for such products, causing various issues for sellers and consumers. Therefore, product authentication represents an important endeavor. While traditional approaches such as expert-based produ...

3D printing is a technology expected to have a huge impact on Logistics and Supply Chain Management (LSCM) and especially on physical distribution. The aim of the paper is to elaborate on the implications and benefits of 3D printing for (i) physical distribution strategies and processes, (ii) the role of the logistics service provider (LSP), and (i...

Virtual Reality (VR) in industry offers opportunities to decrease design and production costs, maintain product quality and reduce the time needed to go from product concept to production. Due to its interactive nature, VR is also used for simulations of training sessions to communicate knowledge on assembly and maintenance processes. So far, there...

High-quality luxury products cater to a specific group of consumers due to their durability and the value attached to them. Counterfeiting luxury products has resulted in economic losses for both the producers and consumers. The market for counterfeit luxury products has continued to grow due to the difficulty in authenticating genuine luxury produ...

Luxury products are expensive goods of high quality that are produced in limited quantities. Unsurprisingly, the problem of counterfeiting is especially high for such products, causing various issues for sellers and consumers. Therefore, product authentication represents an important endeavor. While traditional approaches such as expert-based produ...

Supply chains are immersed in extremely complex and dynamic environments. Reducing uncertainty and improving decision making by means of data-driven supply chain management (SCM) has increasingly become an indispensable core of organizational management. To implement data-driven SCM, companies need to possess the right skilled employees. Job advert...

Purpose The transition to omnichannel retail is the recognized future of retail, which uses digital technologies (e.g. augmented reality shopping assistants) to enhance the customer shopping experience. However, retailers struggle with the implementation of such technologies in brick-and-mortar stores. Against this background, the present study inv...

To stay competitive against e-commerce, many retailers started to adopt a digital retail strategy, leveraging a myriad of online and offline touchpoints to increase their customer experience and, as a result, their sales. However, currently, no guidelines exist on how digital retailers can identify, evaluate, and influence sales impacting touchpoin...

Retailers have started to integrate their online and offline channels in order to increase revenue by creating a superior customer experience. However, they lack an instrument with which to identify the touchpoints that are most influential for customer decision making. Therefore, this study introduces a novel, multi-method approach that utilizes c...

Due to globalization, food supply chains are scattered around the globe. As a result, they become more complex and anonymous, potentially confusing customers of the food’s origin and production conditions. In addition, due to higher living standards, consumers are demanding greater transparency in the food production process in terms of safety, qua...

Managing touchpoints is a crucial task of today’s digital retail companies to ensure a consistent brand perception for their customers. However, even from a company perspective, people from differing departmental or managerial levels may perceive the influence of touchpoints on brand perception differently, highlighting varying priorities in touchp...

Brick-and-mortar retailers need to stay competitive to the convenience provided by online channels. Technologies, such as personalized shopping assistants on smartphones can empower customers in-store towards a similar experience as in an online scenario. For instance, an augmented reality shopping assistance application with explainable recommenda...

Queuing systems manage the order of customers waiting for their service encounter fairly and equitably and influence the perception of their experience in a physical retail store. In this field study, we investigate a self-service and a human-operated queuing system, both offering additional features, designed to offer a higher level of personaliza...

Today’s brick-and-mortar retail is struggling to stay competitive when compared to e-commerce. However, with a new form of retail emerging, which makes use of modern day technology to drive sales and offers unique customer experiences, the playing field seems to level out. Nevertheless, in this so-called “digital retail”, the number of touchpoints...

The increasing popularity of smartphones, the constant rise of e-commerce turnover and plungingdepartment storesales have a significant impact on brick-and-mortar stores revenue. Nevertheless, brick-and-mortar revenue still makes up 90% of total retail revenue. This gives rise to the question of how smartphones affect sales in brick-and-mortar stor...

When analysing the impact of blogs on sales, previous research focused solely on qualitative factors (e.g. trust and credibility). This article, however, answers the question if one can also identify quantitative factors such as the number of followers on social media and similar. For this reason, a multiple regression analysis was conducted analys...