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This paper aims to examine how the temporal distance can influence the effect of the scarcity message. To demonstrate this effect, the authors use the limited-quantity flash sales and compare two types of mixed promotion method comprising discount rate and limited quantity.

The results of the experiment reveal that consumers in the temporally distant condition have a relatively high-level construal of the limited-quantity flash sales and are more likely to value desirability (discount rate) over feasibility (limited quantity).

When the expected value is identical, consumers prefer limited-quantity flash sales with smaller limited quantity but higher discount rates. However, consumers in the temporally near condition have a relatively low-level construal of the limited-quantity flash sales and are more likely to value feasibility (limited quantity) over desirability (discount rate).

When the expected value is identical, consumers prefer limited-quantity flash sales with lower discount rates but larger limited quantity.

The authors investigate the manufacturer's choice of discount schemes in a supply chain with competing retailers.

Using a game-theoretic model, the authors build two discount frameworks and compare and analyze the effects of different discount schemes on the performance of supply chain members.

The authors find that the retail price (market demand) in the quantity discount scheme is always higher (lower) than that in the market share discount scheme. The authors also find that the retailers' preference for discount schemes is antithetical to the manufacturer's preference in most cases. However, under certain conditions, there will be a win-win situation where Pareto-optimization occurs between the manufacturer and retailers when they choose the same discount scheme.

On the one hand, the authors assume that the two retailers are symmetrical in market size and operation efficiency. It would be interesting to study the effect of different discount schemes on retailers when the retailers have different market sizes or operating efficiency. On the other hand, the authors study the manufacturer's choice of discount schemes in a supply chain with one common manufacturer and two competing retailers. However, in practice, there exist other supply chain structures. Future research can examine the problem of choices of discount schemes in other different supply chain structures.

This paper help retailers and manufacturers to choose the best discount schemes.

This paper suggests that a high discount scale is not always beneficial (detrimental) to retailers (the manufacture).

The authors build two discount schemes (the quantity and the market share) in a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and two retailers, and the authors focus on the effects of different discount schemes on the competition between two retailers. By comparing the two discount schemes, the authors study which discount scheme is the better choice for the manufacturer when facing competing retailers.

The COVID-19 has brought with it valuable opportunities for the retail sector. Notably, online channels have assumed a key role for businesses that can rely less on physical channels due to the pandemic's restrictions. Within this context, the study aims to identify the main antecedents leading to the formation of the male and female customers' continuance intention of using online food delivery services (OFDS) in the restaurant industry.

A web-based self-completion survey and a subsequent structural equation modelling have been employed on a sample of 360 participants.

Findings reveal that perceived healthiness, quarantine procedures, perceived hygiene, perceived ease of app use and attitude significantly influence continuance intention. Moreover, the moderator analysis corroborates that male consumers' continuance intention is mainly influenced by perceived healthiness, quarantine procedures and perceived hygiene. Conversely, female customers' continuance intention is predicated on perceived healthiness and attitude.

Although the adoption of a sample of young customers (18–29 years) guarantees good research internal validity, findings are not generalizable.

The study provides valuable contributions for restaurants related to the (1) creation/management of their own OFDS platforms; (2) selection of the right third-party platforms.

The paper is one of the first studies examining the predictors impacting on customers' OFDS continuance intention in the COVID-19 context by also focusing on gender differences.

This study was designed to specifically explore confirmation and perceived usefulness associated with mobile food ordering apps (MFOAs) in consideration of their impacts upon attitudes, satisfaction and intention to continuously use.

The research utilized the convenience sampling to gather data from 250 respondents having prior experience with MFOAs during COVID-19 pandemic period in Bangladesh. The Structural Equation Modeling technique was applied to analyze the data using SmartPLS 3 software.

This study's results showed that customers' perceived confirmation and usefulness were significant in determining their dinning attitudes. Besides, customers' dining attitudes were positively related to e-satisfaction. Finally, the customers’ continuance intention to use MFOAs was significantly influenced by their e-satisfaction.

Restaurants managers should focus on online sales through MFOAs during the pandemic period since social distancing is a key strategy to manage COVID-19. Customers should be assured that the safety measures are undertaken while delivering the food.

This study incorporated the expectation-confirmation theory and technology acceptance model and tested it in the context of MFOAs.

Regarding the retail internal supply chain (SC), both retailers and research are currently focused on reactive food waste reduction options in stores (e.g. discounting or donations). These options reduce waste after a surplus has emerged but do not prevent an emerging surplus in the first place. This paper aims to reveal how retailers can proactively prevent waste along the SC and why the options identified are impactful but, at the same time, often complex to implement.

The authors follow an exploratory approach for a nascent topic to obtain insights into measures taken in practice. Interviews with experts from retail build the main data source.

The authors identify and analyze 21 inbound, warehousing, distribution and store-related options applied in grocery retail. Despite the expected high overall impact on waste, prevention measures in inbound logistics and distribution and warehousing have not been intensively applied to date.

The authors provide a structured approach to mitigate waste within retailers' operations and categorize the types of barriers that need to be addressed.

This research provides a better understanding of prevention options in retail operations, which has not yet been empirically explored. Furthermore, this study conceptualizes prevention and reduction options and reveals implementation patterns.

To minimize customer churn, many service providers offer consumers the option of automatic contract renewal at the end of a contract period. Such agreements are known as rollover service contracts (RSCs). This research quantifies the effect of RSCs and other related factors, such as incentives, on consumers' service choice decisions.

The study adopts choice-based conjoint analysis to assess the effect of RSCs on consumers' choices and to determine whether effect size varies when selecting a cell phone network or gym/leisure club provider, which represent lower-priced utilitarian and higher-priced hedonic services.

It was found that RSCs produce negative perceptions and intended behaviors for the majority of consumers across different product types. Nevertheless, as explained by social exchange theory, many individuals may be persuaded to enter into a RSC on the basis of reciprocity if they are offered an incentive such as a price discount or free product add-on.

In the marketing domain, this is the first comprehensive study to quantify the role of contract type among a range of other factors in consumers' decision-making when selecting a service. The authors' results offer context-specific implications for service marketers. First, RSCs are perceived more negatively in high-priced hedonistic categories, especially among those with lower incomes. Second, price discounts are more effective than product add-ons for motivating hedonic purchases, while product add-ons work better with utilitarian services.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges of pricing quantity surveying (QS) professional services to enhance the understanding of practitioners in developing strategies for the determination of fees for their services.

The paper adopts the quantitative approach by administering 150 survey questionnaires QS professionals out of which 79 questionnaires were retrieved for analysis using the mean, standard deviation, standard error and the Chi-Square test.

The study identified the challenges that continue to hamper the successful pricing of QS services as the inability to respond to changing contractual arrangements; lack of appropriate response to emerging services; slow response to changes in information and communication technology.

This paper focused on QS professionals. Hence, a future study to encompass other professionals in the built environment will be novel.

The findings of this paper have the potential to motivate QS firms to develop solutions that address the challenges identified to improve the efficiency of their service delivery to clients. The paper also has the practical importance of opening up new frontiers of research that focus on pricing of professional services in the built environment in general.

The paper contributes to the awareness and understanding of QS professionals about the challenges that continue to hamper effective pricing of their services.

The purpose of this paper is to design a contract to coordinate the biomass molding fuel supply chain consisting of a supplier with uncertain supply and a producer with cyclical demand as well as improve the profit of this supply chain.

In this paper, the supply chain model was build and all the variables and assumptions are set. Stackelberg game model was used to analyze and solve the problem. Furthermore, the authors give numerical examples and result analysis on the basis of data coming from field study and online information about a real biomass fuel supply chain.

The wholesale price with shortage penalty contract the authors proposed can coordinate the supply chain. And as the dominator of the supply chain, the producer can realize the redistribution of profits within the supply chain by determine the contract parameters.

This one-to-one supply chain is a basic of complex supply chain system. Multi-to-one, one-to-multi and multi-to-multi supply chain can be studied in the future.

The results obtained in this paper can be used as a reference for enterprises in biomass energy supply chain to make contracts and realize the long-term co-operations among supply chain members.

Inventory accumulation is a major problem for any organization, as it not only occupies the valuable storage space, but it also blocks the company's capital, leaving the owners with less cash to run the company's business. Aggregation of inventory in any organization contributes to inventory carrying cost; it affects labor productivity, increases equipment expenses and creates a loss of opportunity associated with it. Therefore, it is essential for any organization to come up with a solution to deal with the stockpile of inventory.

This research aims to examine the potential causes of inventory aggregation in an organization. First, the potential factors for the build-up of inventory are identified from survey data collection, such as questionnaire approach and discussion with industry experts, and then weights are assigned to attributes to study the effects for these factors. After the identification of probable causes, they are analyzed through a multi-criterion decision-making (MCDM) approach and the technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) to prioritize the severity of these causes toward the accumulation of inventory and take corrective actions to prevent their disruptive effect on the business.

The top three causes identified from the TOPSIS analysis are sales and forecasting error, defects and quality related issues and communication gap between departments. Firstly, we focus on these major contributors and prioritize them using the TOPSIS analysis. Then, we proceed further toward other factors. The main reasons identified for the accumulation of inventory are (1) forecasting error, (2) bulk purchase, (3) data entry error, (4) communication gaps, (5) quality-related issues, (6) product category not traceable and (7) wrong material being procured.

To carry out the data analysis in this research paper, first survey data collection is done. Then, discussions with managers and executives in the particular domain are carried out, and weights are assigned to the attributes and the criteria to study the effects of the identified factors. After that root cause analysis (RCA) is performed to get to the genesis of the problem and to take necessary corrective action, for carrying out this study, a total of seven potential causes were identified and the contribution of these seven causes on five attributes or criteria, i.e. quantity (in tons), holding and carrying cost, effect on labor productivity, loss of opportunity cost and storage space were studied.

This research paper is the author’s original work, and all the analyses carried out are from the discussion with experts in the field and through the in-depth analysis carried out. This research aims to examine the potential causes of the accumulation of inventory in organizations and their contribution toward factors like inventory carrying cost, labor productivity, and opportunity loss and excessive storage space have been analyzed. This research provides great value to the readers in the respective domain.

In the presence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), due to the social distance restriction, consumers' regular consumption behaviors and patterns have been changing fundamentally. Thereafter, an innovative group buying model has emerged and developed explosively with a specific focus on consumer's location, known as community-based group buying (CGB). The purpose of this paper is to investigate the transfer mechanism of user's trust in dyadic contexts of social and commercial role-playing in the CGB program.

This study adopts an empirical research method, with an online and offline questionnaire survey, a total of 382 responses have been obtained. Then, both descriptive analysis and hierarchical regression analysis are conducted to explore the dual roles of group leader and its corresponding effects on consumers' trust (i.e. emotional trust and behavioral trust) and engagement actions (i.e. purchase and share) in the CGB program.

Results indicate that resident's trust and their perception of group leader's friend role can positively enhance their engagement actions in the CGB programs. Meanwhile, for the purpose of profit maximization, the group leader is more willing to play a friend role in transactions no matter whether the role conflict exists.

Research findings provide some managerial insights for CGB platform on the selection and training of group leaders and the incentive mechanism design.