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Ship Faster: Feasibility Studies on a Freight-Forwarding APP from China to Bahrain
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How people prefer to shop is an ever-changing landscape. There has been a boom in online shopping since the first online shopping purchase in 1994. With the end of the pandemic, retailers and other businesses need to know whether this increase will continue. Online shopping preferences: safety, technology, branding, and customer experience were explored to determine the current determinants of shopping preferences. A phenomenological design was used to examine the lived experiences of six shoppers who represent the most popular demographic of online shoppers. This study presents a clearer understanding of what business marketers need to understand about the online shopping decisions of shoppers.
For logistics service providers (LSPs), improving customer satisfaction and obtaining customer re-use intention are key to gaining sustainable competitive advantages and success. Logistics service quality (LSQ) is a concern for logistics service providers, retailers, and customers. The proposed model, which is based on the stimuli-organism-response theory and the logistics service quality framework, integrates operational quality, resource quality, information quality, personal contact quality, customization quality, and customer satisfaction to study logistics service re-use intentions. The data were obtained from an online survey using a structured questionnaire given to those with experience in logistics service. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling on 810 respondents who were adult Chinese customers, this study discovered that operational, resource, information, personal contact, and customization qualities positively affect the satisfaction of logistics service customers, while customer satisfaction positively affects re-use intention. Moreover, the results of the mediation analysis revealed that customer satisfaction mediated the connection between the five components of LSQ and the re-use intention of logistics services. The originality of the study lies in its comprehensive examination of the direct and indirect effects of service quality dimensions on customer satisfaction and logistics service re-use intention in the context of logistics services. This study provides valuable insights into the importance of customer satisfaction in the logistics industry and highlights the need for logistics companies to prioritize customer satisfaction and improve their overall performance and competitiveness.
This article's main goal is to examine how digital platforms and supply chain traceability (SCT) might contribute to robust information and efficient inventory management (EIM); Methods: SmartPLS3 software was used in conjunction with the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PSL-SEM) technique. Using the snowball sampling method, the software was used to collect data from Pakistani supply chain (SC) specialists; Results: According to this study's conclusions, robust information and inventory management using digital platforms and SC trace-ability depend greatly on transparency; Conclusions: Even though investing in digital platforms is a complex process including multiple internal and external parties, this study will be helpful for the decision-makers who make such decisions. The paper identifies research gaps and presents the potential for more research while also increasing awareness of digital platforms, traceability, and transparency in the SC system. There is a shortage of empirical evidence on how digital platforms and SCT lead to robust information and EIM through the mediation association of transparency, notwithstanding the abundance of research conducted on SCT and transparency.
Digitization, informatization, and internet penetration have led to a significant rise in cross-border e-commerce (CBEC), attracting considerable interest from academia, government, and industry. This study employed a novel method combining automatic text generation technology and traditional bibliometric analysis to summarize and categorize research on CBEC evolution from 2000 to 2021. Articles were selected and examined with a focus on four dimensions: customer, risk, supply chain, and platform. Contradictions in these dimensions were found to result in two major obstacles to CBEC development, namely, dataset sharing and platform scalability. These obstacles prevent research on cross-border platforms from moving beyond theory-based studies. Further research needs to examine how soft computing can be used to accelerate and remodel the global trade ecosystem.
Objectives
To explore the determinants of consumer purchase intentions on foreign multi-sided e-commerce platforms (MSPs) within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods applied
The study relies on a survey of a representative sample of 810 Poles. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was applied to analyze the data.
Findings
The study confirms the influence of the perceived usefulness and legal protection of online purchases, changes in retailers’ activity during the pandemic, and perceived value of purchases on a MSP on purchase intentions.
Originality/value
The article provides insight into consumer online behavior, i.e., determinants of the intention to purchase via MSPs, including those not extensively studied yet. It also takes into account the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This study's results may be valuable both from the prism of its contribution to the literature on consumer behavior and to business practitioners.
This study explores the challenge of cyber security threats that e-commerce technology and business are facing. Technology applications for e-commerce are attracting attention from both academia and industry. It has made what was not possible before for the business community and consumers. But it did not come all alone but has brought some challenges, and cyber security challenge is one of them. Cyber security concerns have many forms, but this study focuses on social engineering, denial of services, malware, and attacks on personal data. Firms worldwide spend a lot on addressing cybersecurity issues, which grow each year. However, it seems complicated to overcome the challenge because the attackers continuously search for new vulnerabilities in humans, organizations, and technology. This paper is based on the conceptual analysis of social engineering, denial of services, malware, and attacks on personal data. We argue that implementing modern technology for e-commerce and cybersecurity issues is a never-ending game of cat and mouse. To reduce risks, reliable technology is needed, training of employees and consumer is necessary for using the technology, and a strong policy and regulation is needed at the firm and governmental level.
This paper assesses how various ways of organizing last-mile logistics impact resource utilization, and, in turn, opportunities for consolidating goods. The paper combines a conceptualization of resourcing and consolidation derived from the literature with an analysis of contemporary last-mile logistics options in the Swedish retail market. Based on the analysis of three forms of last-mile logistics—consumer logistics, retailer logistics, and hybrid logistics—the paper discusses how resourcing for fixed, mobile, and coordination resources can enable consolidation in terms of time, place, and form. Drawing from the Swedish context, the paper calls for additional research combining country-specific studies while examining similarities and differences in last-mile logistics, particularly concerning factors that enable or hinder consolidation as well as how such potentials are realized in practice. Although consolidation clearly appears in the rich literature on last-mile logistics, this paper focuses on how consolidation can be achieved through resourcing and offers additional insights into current frameworks for last-mile logistics in retailing.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, livestream shopping has provided consumers with a way to maintain social distancing while offering an alternative to offline shopping. This study aims to understand the impact of COVID-19 and other public health crises on the behavioral intentions of consumers using livestream shopping technology. A theoretical model was designed that combines the health belief model, trust theory, and the theory of planned behavior. Empirical data were collected from 358 residents in China and then analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived obstacles had a significant impact on consumer trust. Consumer trust in turn had a direct impact on behavioral intention and an indirect impact on behavioral intention via attitude. These research results have practical implications for livestream shopping merchants, platform decision-makers, and service designers.
The last years have seen a rapid growth of the takeaway delivery market, which has provided a lot of jobs for deliverymen. However, increasing numbers of takeaway orders and the corresponding pickup and service points have made order selection and path planning a key challenging problem to deliverymen. In this paper, we present a problem integrating order selection and delivery path planning for deliverymen, the objective of which is to maximize the revenue per unit time subject to maximum delivery path length, overdue penalty, reward/penalty for large/small number of orders, and high customer scoring reward. Particularly, we consider uncertain order ready time and customer satisfaction level, which are estimated based on historical habit data of stores and customers using a machine-learning approach. To efficiently solve this problem, we propose a hybrid evolutionary algorithm, which adapts the water wave optimization (WWO) metaheuristic to evolve solutions to the main order selection problem and employs tabu search to route the delivery path for each order selection solution. Experimental results on test instances constructed based on real food delivery application data demonstrate the performance advantages of the proposed algorithm compared to a set of popular metaheuristic optimization algorithms.
This study is aimed at examining unconventional outdoor media advertising, the visualization structure of advertisements, and how messages are displayed. The research method used was Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, which involved the following: a) a text analysis, identifying the advertising visual structure; b) an analysis of discourse practices, which comprises how texts are narrated, modelled, produced and consumed; and c) a social practice analysis, which links advertising ideas and urban cultures. The research involved 30 respondents consisting of students, lecturers, and employees of Universitas Trisakti in a focus group discussion (FGD) to obtain public perceptions of visual attractiveness. Outdoor media advertising is attributed to the development of creative, short, readable messages, with simple visual structures that enable reading patterns from left to right or top to bottom. Based on observations of three research samples, it was found that there were novel ideas regarding outdoor media advertising creative strategies, namely, a) the novelty of advertising a new visual element structure by reversing outdoor media design principles; b) the intentional convention of reversed messages having evoked a more interacting public response; and c) advertising with sociocultural narrative content through the provision of advertised commercial products and services. The findings in this study show that there is a longer exposure level to unconventional outdoor media; therefore, the public’s goal is to interpret the message delivered. Unconventional advertising is the new orientation of communication strategies. The findings in this study have practical implications in arrangement of visual structures to become more interactive.
With continuous change in the global and domestic markets for TPL services, it becomes imperative that both users and providers of TPL services equip themselves with the best in terms of strategy, processes and technology. One of the ways this can be achieved is to bridge the gap between what the industry wants and what research provides. This paper conducts a systematic literature review of research output on TPL vis-à-vis how the industry views the challenges faced by it in TPL services. The paper identifies that future research should focus on driving innovation particularly within the last mile by utilizing route optimization, incentivized scheduling, and real-time electronic tracking and communication. It should also focus on how to leverage employees and provide added value to shippers. Supply chain transformation through improved logistics optimization and improved integration across the supply chain is also another important avenue to pursue in future.
Purpose – The presented paper aims to characterize the main differences and similarities between B2B as well as the commercial customers buying behaviors. Design/Methodology/Approach – The authors’ approach is based on the literature and research review, concerning the B2B customers buying behaviors. The authors assess buying behavior of professional clients. Findings – Based on the analysis, we can find out that the use of electronic means of cooperation between the companies continues to grow in strength and dynamics. It seems that the distribution model, where the supplier runs his own B2B shop, maintains its position only in case of strong market players. Small and weak players will use the universal marketplaces. We observe growing “self-service with everything”; providers will pass on to buyers and systems, most actions which they can perform by themselves. Practical implications – The outcome of the analysis can teach managers to act on the B2B electronic markets, how to organise the multi-channel sale systems and how these systems can be used by both, commercial and business customers. Original value – The original value of the paper is that we have presented the general analysis of possible future expectations of B2B business customers, as well as those customers buying behaviors which regard to the use of the omnichannel sale. Article type – Research and literature general review.
The Internet has become an essential part of our daily life, and companies realise that the Internet can be
a shopping channel to reach existing and potential consumers. The emergence and rapid growth of
Internet and E-commerce has triggered off many changes in our life. This new phenomenon has
promised change, challenges and even bright future, not only to consumers but also to companies,
suppliers and middlemen. There are still many “ifs” and “buts” that we find people are whispering
relating to its potentiality, impact and implications on business and social lives of all. This paper tried to
answer some of those “ifs” and “buts”, this paper tried to explain the what encourage people to buy
online further it tried to explain what is the future of online marketing?
We study the global trade network and quantify its trade and welfare impact. We document that the trade network is a hub-and-spoke system where 80 percent of trade is shipped indirectly and largely via entrepôts—major hubs that facilitate trade between many origins and destinations. We estimate indirect-shipping-consistent trade costs using a model where shipments can be sent indirectly through an endogenous transport network and develop a geography-based instrument to estimate scale economies in shipping. Network and scale effects propagate local trade cost changes globally. Counterfactual infrastructure improvements at entrepôts generate ten times the global welfare impact relative to nonentrepôts. (JEL F12, F14, L92)
This study proposes and empirically tests a contextualized model for investigating repurchase intentions of e-commerce consumers as well as their word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions in high uncertainty avoidance cultures and on a synthesis of the S–O-R paradigm and Information Processing Theory (IPT). Data for the study were collected from 560 Jordanian online customers and analysed using structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The findings demonstrated that the dimensions of policy service quality including cash-on-delivery (COD) payment options and return policy leniency, positively influenced customer trust. In addition, electronic logistics service quality (LSQ) dimensions positively impacted customer satisfaction. Furthermore, it was found that satisfaction of online consumers is a major driver of their trust, repurchase, and WOM intentions. While customer trust was revealed as a key enabler of repurchase intention, its effect on WOM was insignificant. The findings provide useful implications for both practice and future research.
Mobile shopping is on the rise, and the main channel of social media has now shifted from online to mobile. We aim to understand the role of social media apps in driving mobile shopping. Specifically, we examine two performance metrics for mobile shopping—shopping app stickiness and usage time—and classify social media apps into broadcasting and narrowcasting ones. Our empirical analyses using mobile panel data reveal that the usage time of both types of social media apps increases shopping app stickiness. As for shopping app usage time, broadcasting app usage time has a positive impact, while narrowcasting app usage time has a negative impact. We also find that the impact of broadcasting app usage is greater than that of narrowcasting app usage. Furthermore, offline social interactions weaken the effect of social media usage on shopping app stickiness and that of broadcasting app usage on shopping app usage time.
Considering a manufacturer selling products through an online platform that operates in the marketplace mode, we investigate the manufacturer’s production and delivery time decisions, and the government’s region-cap setting under the cap-and-trade regulation with grandfather-based allocation and benchmark-based allocation rules. The comparisons of the two rules in terms of production and delivery time decisions, and social welfare are conducted. We find that the optimal production quantities increase with the region-cap (the manufacturer’s share proportion) with grandfather-based allocation rule, and decrease with the region-cap (the manufacturer’s share proportion) with the other rule under some situations. Moreover, the increasing sensitivity to delivery time brings more production quantities, which further generates
more carbon emission with the two rules if the manufacturer’s share proportion is high. With the increase of the environmental damage coefficient, the optimal region-cap with grandfather-based allocation rule decreases, while it increases with the other rule under some situations. By comparing the two allocation rules, we find that when the environmental damage coefficient is high, the grandfather-based allocation rule generates less carbon emission and more social welfare; otherwise, the benchmark-based allocation rule tends to bring more carbon emission and more social welfare. As a result, for the regions with a serious environmental problem, the government should adopt the grandfather-based allocation rule; for the other regions, the government should adopt the benchmark-based allocation rule.
With the rapid diffusion of smart technologies, a new retail mode, the smart shop, has received increasing attention from both academia and practitioners in the 5G era. However, previous studies on smart shops have largely focused on the effects of smart technologies on technology adoption rather than customer shopping behaviors. To fill this gap, this study applies the hedonic information systems acceptance model (HISAM) to identify the utilitarian and hedonic motivations affecting consumer shopping intention. In addition, we char- acterize a second-order formative construct, technology readiness, as a technology-related personality to test its moderating role in the research model in the marketing context when consumer behaviors may differ due to individual characteristics. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we applied SmartPLS 3.2.8 to analyze 298 valid samples. The results show that perceived ease of use significantly affects perceived usefulness and perceived enjoyment, in turn, these three factors directly influence shopping intention. Additionally, perceived ease of use will have a stronger impact on perceived usefulness and shopping intention when the customer has a high level of technology readiness. Finally, theoretical and practical suggestions and future research directions are also discussed.
Keywords: Cross-border e-commerce Multi-product newsvendor Logistics service capacity (LSC) allocation Third-party forwarding logistics (3PFL) Deep learning A B S T R A C T With the rise of "cross-border-e-commerce", the third-party-forwarding-logistics (3PFL) service becomes increasingly popular. Different from the traditional third-party-logistics (3PL) service, the 3PFL company provides forwarding services cost-effectively by consolidating orders from different e-tailers/platforms. The random arrivals of orders create a big challenge. Different from most of the existing studies, a deep learning based one-step integration optimal decision making approach S2SCL(Seq2Seq based CNN-LSTM) is proposed in this paper which intelligently integrates inventory optimization and demand-forecasting process. The Seq2Seq based forecasting architecture, which integrates CNN and LSTM network, is able to model the system dynamics and dependency-relations in varying demand for logistics services. Besides generating the point forecasting results, the proposed approach can quantify demand uncertainty via a dynamic distribution and make optimal decision on logistics service capacity allocation. Through a case-study analysis with real data obtained from a 3PFL company in China's Great Bay Area, we compare the proposed S2SCL with two benchmark models, including a one-step statistics based integration approach ARIMA and a two-step optimization based approach PSO-ELM, for two tasks: (1) point forecasting and (2) optimal logistic service capacity (LSC) allocation. Experimental results show that S2SCL outperforms the two benchmark models in both tasks significantly.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine how the perceived trustworthiness of a B2B service provider relates to a business customer’s intention to use digital services from that provider. The study investigates whether perceived trustworthiness, composed of ability, integrity and benevolence, explains behavioral intentions equally among all business customer segments, and how characteristics such as job level, decision-making role, technology readiness age and gender moderate these effects.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on a model of trust transfer mechanism, the study explores how perceived trustworthiness established in face-to-face interaction influences the use of digital services in making B2B purchases. Hypotheses are tested using a sample of 1,866 responses collected from customers of four B2B firms.
Findings
Ability is the most influential on the customer’s intention to transact through digital channels, while the effects of integrity and benevolence show more variation. The effect of perceived trustworthiness on the intention to use digital services is remarkably stronger among senior and middle management, high-level decision makers, the younger age segment, men and individuals high in technology readiness, compared to other segments studied.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the scant research on B2B customer behavior in the digital environment and incorporates individual characteristics specific to the industrial domain.
In recent years, the role of freight transportation and parcel delivery in urban areas has increased, supporting the economic and social development of cities. At the same time, the industry is affected by various issues, inefficiencies, and externalities, particularly in the last-mile segment. As such, there is an emerging awareness of a need to improve urban mobility and transportation, making them more sustainable and competitive by mixing traditional and emerging technologies, such as cargo bikes, autonomous vehicles, and drones. In contrast, the complexity of the overall system, characterized by multiple actors with conflicting goals, requires a strategy that harmonizes these actors’ business and operational models. This study contributes in this direction along three axes. First, it defines the main actors involved in urban parcel delivery, and then analyzes their business models and the interactions between them. Second, it investigates the integration of traditional and green logistics (mainly cycle-logistics), from both business and operational perspectives, in order to identify synergies, conflicts, and the operational and economic consequences of adopting green vehicles. Third, it introduces a simulation-optimization decision support system tool capable of assessing mixed-fleet policies for the management of parcel delivery in urban areas. Finally, the decision support system is tested using real data of the city of Turin.
E-services play a crucial role in attracting new online customers as well as retaining the old ones. This research paper is an attempt to define a framework for assessing the quality of e-services offered by B2C e-commerce websites. The proposed e-service quality framework (e-SQF) is applied on ten most popular B2C e-commerce websites in Pakistan to assess their relative state of e-service quality. The selected websites are assessed on each of the eight e-service quality dimensions defined in the e-SQF (i.e., e-search, e-response, e-transaction, e-payment, assurance and trust, e-help and e-technologies, post-sales support and website design and functionality). An overall assessment of each of the selected websites is also made to rank them in order of quality of e-services offered. The proposed framework can be a useful tool to quantify the quality of e-services offered by the e-tailers.
People worldwide are largely engaged and attached with the web 2.0 technology and Social media platforms. By the same token, businesses start looking at such technologies as effective mechanisms to interact more with their customers. Equally, the related issues of social media marketing have been also the focus of attention for academics and researchers to expand the current understanding about such phenomena over the marketing area. Accordingly, the main aim of this study is to systematically examine and review the current studies that have conducted over the related area of social media and marketing. By reviewing approximately 144 articles, the researchers were able to provide an overview of the main themes and trends covered by the relevant literature such as the role of social media on advertising, the electronic word of mouth, customers’ relationship management, and firms’ brands and performance. In this review, it has also studied the most common research approaches adopted to examine the related issues of social media marketing. Further discussion is also introduced followed by an explanation of the current review limitations and recommended directions to be examined by future studies.
Electronic Payment Systems Use and Satisfaction
- K Rouibah
Rouibah K. Electronic Payment Systems Use and Satisfaction