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Both online and brick and mortar retailers have invested heavily in developing omni-channel service offerings. Though seen as a competitive necessity, these omni-channel service offerings increase costs and complexities. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of strategies involving bundles of omni-channel services related to order fulfillment and returns management on retailer performance.

Archival data were obtained for 152 retailers and analyzed using ordinary least squares regression. Robustness tests using an alternative dependent variable and a model-based classification strategy corroborate our findings.

Retailers offering full sets of high integration omni-channel services (buy online pick up in store, ship from store and in-store returns) have better performance (e.g. sales, growth and competitive position) and web sales than retailers that offer only a partial mix of these high integration services. Retailers offering a partial bundle of high integration services, in turn, have better performance and web sales than retailers that offer none of these services.

The research extends work that has examined the performance effects of omni-channel services on individual retailers. Our results indicate retailers benefit the most when offering a full set of high integration omni-channel services, suggesting retailers who have only adopted a subset of these services could improve performance through broader adoption of services. The results further indicate partial adoption of high integration services is better than no adoption.

Awareness of environmental impacts on society is increasing among companies. In order to turn environmental problems into business opportunities, many companies are beginning to consider how environmental, or green aspects can be integrated into their service offerings. This opportunity can be of specific interest to logistics service providers, whose core business is an environmental impact in itself. The purpose of this article is to indicate where green‐labelled logistics service providers are positioned today in their development, and to seek the underlying rationale in development of green service offerings.

This article takes a logistics service provider's perspective and is based on a multiple case study of six companies. The analysis is based on cross‐case analysis, and empirical, as well as theoretical, pattern matching.

The attitude towards a green approach differs among the case companies: while some are working towards a green integration throughout the entire business, others offer green alternatives to the original service offering. The results point to possible explanations for these differences, and include differences in range of service offerings, size, and to different management principles for green aspects.

The article can inspire logistics service providers in their continuing work to integrate green initiatives into the company. By introducing alternative green approaches in the development of service offerings, logistics service providers can match their own business and context with alternative rationales.

While most of the green logistics research focuses on the logistics system's characteristics, this article offers initial insights into how the integration of green aspects into logistics services can impact logistics service providers.

Memorial University of Newfoundland, based in St. John's, is the single university in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Faculty of Business Administration is the largest concentration of resident business educational and management development expertise. In 1980, the Faculty established the Center for Management Development with the role to coordinate its non‐credit, continuing professional business educational and management training and development activities. The mandate of the Center is the development and delivery of continuing entrepreneurship and business management education programmes for the public, and for practising managers in business, government and other organisations in the province — it is to develop management in Newfoundland and Labrador. As part of the Faculty of Business Administration, the Center exists to provide management development offerings where they are most needed, and not solely on the basis of commercial profitability.

The primary objective of this paper is to formulate a research agenda in the area of consumer evaluation and competitive advantage in retail financial services markets. In order to achieve this objective, a brief exposition of the market‐led view of competitive advantage is provided, which emphasises the importance of the provision of “customer value” in the relevant market. The process of consumer evaluation of financial services offerings is then reviewed and potential problems in consumer understanding of some types of financial services offerings are highlighted. The implications of such problems for the formulation of value adding strategies are explored with reference to the conceptualisation of the financial service offering and in particular which elements of the offering may be particularly important in adding value in the eyes of consumers. Finally, propositions for research are developed and explored, with the aim of informing both academics and practitioners.

Contributes to the development of a model of Internet offerings, labelled the NetOffer model, by analysing data from an Internet‐based case, cinema ticket sales on the Internet. The objective is not to test hypotheses about Internet offerings, but to develop an understanding of the nature of such offerings. The study shows that although Internet offerings in the virtual marketspace can be characterised as services, a model of such offerings is only partly similar to a service offering model from the physical marketplace, the Grönroos Augmented Service Offering model, used as a starting point for the analysis. In the proposed model major features need to be modified or added. The accessibility and interaction elements of service offerings merge into one communication variable and a user interface element is included as an Integral part of an internet offering. The information element of the model is also explicitly emphasised.

The objective of this work is to empirically investigate the design of a service delivery system that supports the provision of modular service logistics offerings.

An in-depth single-case study relying on interview data and extensive documentary evidence is carried out in the business-to-business (B2B) logistics sector. Three main analytical techniques are used to make sense of the qualitative data: thematic analysis, process mapping and the application of modular operators.

A modular service delivery system comprises three types of processes that collectively deliver modular offerings. The platform consists of core processes that enable the collection, transport and delivery of physical items for all offerings (modular and non-modular). Dedicated modular processes are mandatory and exclusive to individual modular offerings. Optional modular processes are shared across several modular offerings. Interfaces regulate physical (e.g. parcels or parts) and information (e.g. booking data) inputs provided by the customer in order to control the interdependencies within these different process types.

The identification of three process types and their interdependencies provides detailed insights into how managers can design modular logistics services that benefit from economies of scale and meet increasingly variable customer requirements. The importance of well-designed interfaces among the customers, the service offering and the service delivery system is highlighted.

This study extends previous modularity studies in service logistics. It is the first study to apply modular operators to determine the presence of modularity in the service delivery system and to establish the role of different process types in enabling modularity in the service delivery system.

To achieve a full understanding of the role of marketing from plan to profit requires a knowledge of the basic building blocks. This textbook introduces the key concepts in the art or science of marketing to practising managers. Understanding your customers and consumers, the 4 Ps (Product, Place, Price and Promotion) provides the basic tools for effective marketing. Deploying your resources and informing your managerial decision making is dealt with in Unit VII introducing marketing intelligence, competition, budgeting and organisational issues. The logical conclusion of this effort is achieving sales and the particular techniques involved are explored in the final section.

The purpose of this paper is to explore strategies for visualizing the value of service‐based offerings in a B2B context. By taking a process perspective on the offering life cycle, this paper also aims at distinguishing which visualization strategies are most appropriate using at which life‐cycle stages.

The study employed a qualitative, multiple‐case study research design involving five manufacturing firms.

Primary findings are that firms need to make use of several different visualization strategies depending on, among other things, the key stakeholders and also where the firm's offering is currently positioned in the service‐based offering life cycle.

While the empirical data is from only one sector – i.e. manufacturing – managers from other B2B sectors should have an interest in the results and the key aspects identified. Further research could also establish linkages to performance metrics.

Visualization strategies have been relatively rarely studied from a B2B perspective, and the process dimension, especially, is novel.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the risks for manufacturing companies of extending their traditional goods offerings by the addition of different kinds of services.

The study develops a conceptual framework of nine propositions (and corresponding diagrammatic representations) of the relationships between: three kinds of risk (operational, strategic, and financial); and three strategies for the provision of added service (customisation, bundling, and broadening the range of offerings). This conceptual framework is examined empirically by qualitative analysis of data gathered in a three‐year longitudinal study of managerial representatives from nine multinational manufacturing firms engaged in the addition of services to their traditional goods offerings.

It was found that eight of the nine propositions are fully supported, and one receives equivocal support. In addition, several contextual factors are identified as moderating influences on the relationships between the three categories of service offering and the three classes of risk.

The study provides an original conceptual framework and nine research propositions that represent a useful starting point for the development of a formal theory of the risks of providing services.

The conceptual framework provides guidance for managers' assessments of the risks accompanying the infusion of added services to the traditional goods offerings of manufacturing companies.

The paper provides a novel conceptualisation of service innovation and attendant risk.

Service scholars have questioned the usefulness of the concept of tangibility/intangibility as a characteristic of services for two reasons: first, it is ambiguous and does not differentiate between services and goods; and second, because all offerings, despite their characteristics, render service to customers. Consequently, scholars have suggested discarding the concept altogether. The purpose of this paper is to subject the concept to critical evaluation and argue that tangibility/intangibility is useful, because it influences consumers' experiences with offerings. In this paper, the authors argue that it is necessary to re‐conceptualise tangibility/intangibility to overcome the previous critique.

The authors draw upon empirical research from the service marketing and psychology literature in order to advance knowledge on the nature of tangibility/intangibility and its influence on the formation of consumer experiences.

It is proposed that tangibility/intangibility should be investigated from a consumer perspective, rather than an inherent characteristic in offerings. Also, it is shown that the concept is relevant for understanding consumer experience formation at different stages of the purchase process.

The paper provides propositions on the conceptualization of tangibility/intangibility and its relationship with pre‐, ongoing use and post‐purchase consumer experiences. The authors call for caution in dismissing tangibility/intangibility as a concept in the service marketing literature.