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An uncertain product demand in online retailing leads to loss of opportunity cost and customer dissatisfaction due to instances of product unavailability. On the other hand, when e-retailers store excessive inventory of durable goods to fulfill uncertain demand, it results in significant inventory holding and obsolescence cost. In view of such overstocking/understocking situations, this study attempts to mitigate online demand risk by exploring novel e-retailing approaches considering the trade-offs between opportunity cost/customer dissatisfaction and inventory holding/obsolescence cost.

Four e-retailing approaches are introduced to mitigate uncertain demand and minimize the economic losses to e-retailer. Using three months of purchased history data of online consumers for durable goods, four proposed approaches are tested by developing product attribute based algorithm to calculate the economic loss to the e-retailer.

Mixed e-retailing method of selling unavailable products from collaborative e-retail partner and alternative product's suggestion from own e-retailing method is found to be best for mitigating uncertain demand as well as limiting customer dissatisfaction.

Limited numbers of risk factor have been considered in this study. In the future, others risk factors like fraudulent order of high demand products, long delivery time window risk, damage and return risk of popular products can be incorporated and handled to reduce the economic loss.

The analysis can minimize the economic losses to an e-retailer and also can maximize the profit of collaborative e-retailing partner.

The study proposes a retailer to retailer collaboration approach without sharing the forecasted products' demand information.

Technology has been witnessing a rapid growth. The advent of artificial intelligence has further enhanced the satisfaction level of consumers, which makes it even more vital in the current scenario. This paper aims to explore the factors affecting practical implacability of artificial intelligence and its impact on consumers’ online purchase intention.

This paper has used a technology-based model as the base to explore the different factors affecting consumers’ purchase intention towards e-retailing. This study has formulated a model that demonstrates the integration of artificial intelligence in retailing by the business organizations so as to understand the needs of customers and help them accept technology. This study has further explored faith, subjective norms and consciousness as constructs which enhance the implacability of artificial intelligence.

This study shows that artificial intelligence positively influences consumers’ buying behaviour. This study through a model also shows that integration of artificial intelligence enhances consumers’ purchase intention.

The study has been focusing on a portion of target population. So there is scope to include the whole set of the population to get closer-to-accurate results.

The study offers useful inputs for academicians as well as marketers for predicting buying behaviour of consumers. Marketing managers can use artificial intelligence–embedded technology to enhance online purchase intention.

The study shows that an increase in consciousness towards e-retailing has made consumers keenly analyse and purchase products on the basis of merit and usefulness of the products.

The contribution has been made with the best of knowledge in formulating an integrated artificial intelligence model for consumers’ purchase intention in e-retailing.

The rapid evolution in artificial intelligence (AI) has redefined the customer experience and created huge opportunities for companies to interact with customers using chatbots. This study explores the role of AI chatbots in influencing the online customer experience and customer satisfaction in e-retailing.

A research model based on the technology acceptance model and information system success model is proposed to describe the interrelationships among chatbot adoption, online customer experience and customer satisfaction. Personality is a moderator in the model. The authors used a quantitative approach to collect 425 useable online questionnaires and Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS) and SmartPLS to analyze the measurement model and proposed hypotheses.

The usability of the chatbot had a positive influence on extrinsic values of customer experience, whereas the responsiveness of the chatbot had a positive impact on intrinsic values of customer experience. Furthermore, online customer experience had a positive relationship with customer satisfaction, and personality influenced the relationship between the usability of the chatbot and extrinsic values of customer experience.

This research extends understanding of the online customer experience with chatbots in e-retailing and provides empirical evidence by showing that extrinsic and intrinsic values of online customer experience are enhanced by chatbot adoption.

This study examines the different effects of service recovery strategies on customers' future intentions when online shoppers were experiencing delivery failures. Two types of problem severity are evaluated: wrong-product delivery (issues with the product quality or quantity) and late delivery. This study also investigates the impact of service criticality on the relationship between service recovery strategies and customers' future intentions.

This study employs experimental research with 123 online shoppers as participants. Following the results, a subsequent test is conducted to examine the effect of participants' demographics on future intentions. Finally, the current study elaborates the findings using qualitative research, interviewing both sides impacted by the service failures: online shoppers and e-retail managers.

The findings show that complementing product replacement with monetary compensation is the most effective strategy to improve repurchase intention after a dissatisfaction moment. This effect is indifferent to service criticality and severity. Age influences the participants' repurchase intentions, in which younger people are less tolerant of service failures. In contrast, gender and education level do not provide any differences. To prevent delivery failures, managers participating in this study suggest several best practices regarding systems and infrastructure, people and coordination and collaboration with logistics partners.

The study mainly examines a limited type of service and service failures. Further studies are encouraged to expand the variables and scenarios, as well as to employ more distinctive methods, to enrich the findings related to recovery strategy in the e-commerce industry.

Given proper compensation, service failure could create momentum for online retailers to boost customer loyalty. This study suggests that managers design the most effective service recovery to win customers back to the business.

This paper enriches the literature related to a service recovery strategy, particularly within the online shopping context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the dimensions of online customer experience (OCE) and their impact on satisfaction and loyalty in the clothing e-retail context. Furthermore, it explores the influence of gender on the OCE-satisfaction-loyalty chain.

OCE dimensions were drawn from the literature and then adapted and validated using two samples (217 – exploratory factor analysis, 651 – confirmatory factor analysis) of experienced online clothing shoppers in India. An analysis was done using structured equation modelling.

Six OCE psychological factors and four OCE functionality factors were revealed. Both OCE dimensions impact loyalty either directly or indirectly through satisfaction. Gender is observed to moderate the relationship among three OCE factors (e-distrust, e-negative beliefs and website interactivity) and satisfaction.

The research results are limited to the factors related to each of the two OCE dimensions explored within the clothing e-retail context in India.

Clothing e-retailers need to focus on both the OCE dimensions to drive business sustenance. Furthermore, their OCE strategies should be in line with the gender-based differences highlighted by the study.

The study facilitates in the adaptation and validation of the OCE dimensions in the clothing e-retail category in an emerging market. While all factors associated with both OCE dimensions are important for driving satisfaction and loyalty, the study underscores the need for a higher focus on visual engagement by e-retailers in the given context. Gender moderates the OCE-satisfaction paths, but does not moderate the OCE-loyalty paths.

This paper seeks to explore antecedents for online success and conceptualizes the stages by which a small‐sized “pure‐player” has achieved profitable and sustainable e‐retail in the fashion sector by utilizing a multi‐niche strategy involving an e‐portfolio of five fashion‐related cyberstores.

This qualitative critical‐case utilizes the in‐depth interview technique and rich thematic data analysis to provide insight into e‐retail development, with conceptualizations inductively developed from the data. Findings are linked to business growth, e‐business strategy, portfolio management and entrepreneurship literatures.

Findings identify a staged, evolutionary approach to transactional cyberstore development and outline 20 key factors for e‐retail success. The “web‐weaving” process is conceptualized: this strategic “e‐portfolio management” approach identifies a multi‐niche opportunity for e‐retail, which spreads risk, maximizes revenue streams, utilizes knowledge economies/synergies across multiple‐web sites, promotes customer added value and offers potential for competitive advantage and sustainability for the smaller‐sized e‐retailer.

This is an in‐depth study of a single, long‐standing e‐retailer maintaining superior retention levels across an international customer base. That this enterprise bucks current trends by surviving (when 75 per cent e‐retail ventures fail) adds validity to web‐weaving as a sustainability strategy. Future research should explore this phenomenon within a wider inter/intra‐niche context to further contribute to the enhancement of e‐retail strategic marketing/enterprise development.

Implications indicate that a (niche) e‐portfolio strategy is perceived as defensible, from an owner‐director perspective, for sustaining a fashion e‐retail enterprise. Targeting multiple‐niches via “web‐weaving” provides a clear route to critical‐mass and sustainability, which could prove a valuable lesson for many small e‐retailers – potentially providing a framework for internet‐strategy development in other marketing domains.

This research presents a rich picture of how an e‐retail enterprise, in a highly competitive/dynamic market, can develop and sustain transactional e‐business over the longer‐term – presenting obvious implications to SME retail/marketing management.

The primary aim of this paper is to critically review the literature that explicitly addresses the adoption and application of internet technologies, by retailers, for the promotion and sale of merchandise. In particular, this study seeks to present a holistic and critical review of what is currently known, in order to help establish the gaps that will need to be addressed in future research studies.

The study adopts both quantitative and qualitative approaches to conduct the review, in an attempt to ensure that it is well focused and systematic.

The key finding of this study is that whilst the internet retailing literature is extremely wide‐ranging, and somewhat fragmented, it can be decomposed into three broad categories: the retailer perspective; the consumer perspective; and the technological perspective. Moreover, it has been noted that whilst the strategic potential of the internet is routinely mentioned in nearly all studies of electronic retailing, there have been very few studies that have explicitly or empirically targeted its strategic management.

The major limitation of this study is that due to the sheer volume and fragmentation of the literature in the domain, the paper has been based primarily upon a review of ten key journals, rather than every paper that has been published on internet retailing. However, because the target journals have been carefully chosen and systematically reviewed, we believe that the study should have many important implications for researchers, particularly in terms of where future studies of internet retailing might best be positioned.

This research offers a synthesis of the literature, which provides significant new insights into the field of internet retailing, and in particular its strategic importance.

Online shoppers feel insecure due to the various unethical practices of e-tailers. It is, therefore, crucial for online retailers to alleviate customer concerns. Extant literature indicates that country-of-origin (COO) cues influence consumer perception. A relatively underexplored phenomenon in an emerging market context, the COO image of the online retailer, i.e. a foreign-origin online retailer (FOOR) or an Indian-origin online retailer (IOOR), needs validation. The current study investigates customer expectations of online retailers' ethical behaviour against the backdrop of online retailer-based signals in emerging markets.

The researchers floated an online questionnaire using a seven-point Likert scale. The authors sought recipient responses in Google Forms shared via e-mails and social media connections. The authors analysed 1,018 useable responses using partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) in Smart PLS 3.

The empirical study examined the influence of the consumer perception of ethics of online retailers (CPEOR) and COO on consumer purchase intention. It validated the proposed research model. The research findings inform that the CPEOR and the COO influence purchase intention through the mediation effects of trust and satisfaction. Results indicate that privacy, security, non-deception, fulfilment, customer service, FOOR and IOOR strongly predict consumer trust. In contrast, privacy, non-deception, fulfilment, customer service and FOOR strongly predict consumer satisfaction. However, security and IOOR did not influence consumer satisfaction.

The study results have theoretical and practical implications for academic researchers and online retailing managers. Future studies can validate the model in different geo-demographic scenarios and e-commerce settings.

The study enriches the extant literature on CPEOR in the Indian context. This study is pioneering work examining consumer purchase intention by adding the COO construct to the CPEOR model.

Consumers are worried about sharing their sensitive information during online shopping due to the e-tailer’s unethical practices and hacking-related concerns. Prior research has established the country of origin (COO) as a trust-building cue; however, it requires empirical testing in the online retailing context. The present study aims to examine the e-tailer COO’s effect on consumer privacy, trust and purchase intention.

An online survey floated a seven-point Likert scale questionnaire and invited the receivers to participate in the investigation over e-mails and text messages. A total of 355 usable responses were analyzed using R programming.

This study empirically validated a proposed conceptual model examining the influence of COO on consumer privacy, trust and purchase intention. The findings suggest that COO influences consumer privacy, trust and purchase intention. This study further found that the privacy practices of online retailers positively impact consumer trust. Trust acts as a mediating factor in influencing purchase intention.

This study offers valuable insights for advancing the research agenda and actionable inputs to e-commerce managers for alleviating consumer privacy concerns in emerging economies. Future researchers can test the proposed model in other demographic and e-commerce settings.

This study contributes to the present knowledge on consumer privacy in online retailing in the Indian context. This paper also examines the relationship of COO with consumer privacy, trust and purchase intention, an underexplored research area in emerging markets.

This article aims to provide some key points that e‐retailers should be mindful of when attempting to reach out to Millennial web users in a fast‐evolving web environment.

The key points were derived from a combination of methods that include review of relevant literature (both past and current), empirical evidence drawn from previous studies and the authors' observation of developments within the web retailing environment.

Six key points were listed, covering pertinent issues like first impressions, customer trust and stickiness, magnitude of social networks, delivering rich user experiences, customer relationship retention strategies and the importance of usability and aesthetics.

It is pertinent that e‐retailers keep themselves informed of the latest technological progress within the web environment should they aspire to survive and achieve success in online retailing among Millennials. They should adapt to the needs of the Millennial generation instead of the Millennials adjusting themselves to the e‐retailers.

E‐retailers can gain a better understanding on the characteristics of Millennial web users and on engaging the Millennials' attention and commitment towards online retailing web sites.