{"title":"FM ii: Copyright/ ID Statement","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/S0022-4359(25)00084-3","DOIUrl":"10.1016/S0022-4359(25)00084-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Page ii"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020815","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial from branding to dupes: the new copyconomy","authors":"Katrijn Gielens","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.08.008","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.08.008","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 311-314"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020816","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yufei Zhang , Joyce (Feng) Wang , Chen Lin , G. Tomas M. Hult
{"title":"Assessing fast fashion overstock through time-to-peak-sales","authors":"Yufei Zhang , Joyce (Feng) Wang , Chen Lin , G. Tomas M. Hult","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.001","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><span><span>Product overstock is widely recognized as a principal contributor to diminished profitability and adverse environmental impacts in the fast fashion industry. While considerable attention has been directed toward optimizing the stock-in process, including the adoption of on-demand manufacturing and inventory </span>optimization strategies, solutions for preventing overstock during the stock-out process have largely relied on end-of-season clearance. This reactive approach frequently yields suboptimal outcomes, thereby underscoring the urgent need for a proactive strategy that empowers managers to implement timely, strategic interventions to mitigate overstock problems. This study introduces time-to-peak-sales as an </span>early warning system<span> for the fast fashion industry, offering a viable method for the early detection of product overstock and establishing criteria for prioritizing unsold inventory that demands immediate managerial attention. Drawing on the product life cycle framework and the distinctive practices inherent in fast fashion, we define time-to-peak sales as the number of weeks required for a product to reach its peak sales, positing that it is positively associated with product overstock. Utilizing data from multiple brands across two distinct datasets, we conduct a comprehensive exploration of fast fashion overstock through comparative analyses, model-free descriptive statistics, and regression analyses. Our findings consistently underscore that time-to-peak-sales is a pivotal metric in inventory management, firmly anchored within the product life cycle framework.</span></div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 431-453"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020823","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Generating insult from injury: Receiving self improvement gifts causes negative word of mouth","authors":"Linnéa M. Chapman , Farnoush Reshadi","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.04.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.04.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Many retailers sell self improvement products – and some market these products as gifts. The present research reveals that doing so could have negative consequences. Five experiments investigated how recipients respond to self improvement gifts offering betterment in terms of physical appearance or communication skills. Results show that those who receive self improvement (vs. non improvement) gifts generate more negative word of mouth about the products they receive, for example, by giving them lower star ratings. This effect is explained by the hurt feelings that recipients of self improvement gifts experience. We identify two ways retailers can attenuate the negative word of mouth stemming from self improvement gifts. First, offering financial incentives when soliciting online reviews reduces gift recipients’ negativity. Second, using a humanized appeal when soliciting online reviews helps prevent negative product review ratings. The present findings have important implications for retailers that sell self improvement products. Specifically, retailers could use financial incentives and humanized review requests to attenuate negative word of mouth, or adjust elements of the marketing mix to nudge consumers away from selecting self improvement products as gifts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 366-381"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maarten J. Gijsenberg , Tammo H.A. Bijmolt , Christian F. Hirche
{"title":"Promoting product returns? The impact of at-purchase and post-purchase discounts on customers’ return behavior","authors":"Maarten J. Gijsenberg , Tammo H.A. Bijmolt , Christian F. Hirche","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Online retailers dynamically adjust product prices, potentially influencing both purchase and return behavior of customers. In particular, price discounts may affect returns not only for purchases made during the discount period (at-purchase discounts) but also for purchases made beforehand if a lower price is observed within the return window (post-purchase discounts). This study examines the impact of both discount types on product returns, using transaction data from a major European generalist online retailer comprising nearly 84 million purchases and over 37 million returns across >300 product categories. Results indicate that at-purchase discounts are associated with a linear decline in return rates, whereas post-purchase discounts above 25 % increase return rates in a non-linear fashion. On average, the adverse effects of post-purchase discounts outweigh the favorable effects of at-purchase discounts for discounts exceeding 40 % (20 %) among customers without (with) discount-driven return experience. These effects vary considerably across product categories, depending on shopping motives, category characteristics, and marketing mix. In the end, retailers should recognize that deep discounts may inadvertently promote product returns.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 473-492"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Unifying or discriminating: Competitive pricing strategies for multi-channel retailers","authors":"Kun Zhang , Yue Dai , Gangshu (George) Cai","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div><span>Multi-channel retailers face a crucial decision of whether to charge the same price online and offline. To examine the competitive pricing strategy, we construct a </span>duopoly model with two multi-channel retailers for which consumers are heterogeneous in their brand preferences. Additionally, consumers have heterogeneous product familiarity and are categorized into informed and uninformed segments. While informed consumers are aware of desirable product variants, uninformed consumers may purchase unfit variants and subsequently return them, which incurs return costs for both themselves and the retailer. Therefore, retailers offer store assistance to help uninformed consumers find their matching products. Our analysis reveals that the equilibrium pricing structure is influenced by two effects: the channel-efficiency effect drives the adoption of uniform pricing when a retailer’s store assistance cost is efficient, while the competition effect drives dual pricing when consumers exhibit weak brand preferences and uniform pricing otherwise. The interaction of these effects leads to both symmetric and asymmetric pricing equilibria. In particular, an asymmetric pricing equilibrium emerges when the channel-efficiency effect favors uniform pricing and the competition effect is significant, and at this asymmetric equilibrium, the uniform pricing retailer can outperform its dual pricing rival by offering a uniform price lower than the online and offline prices of the rival.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 454-472"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The illusion of calorie fluency: How metacognitive uncertainty leads to less extreme healthiness perceptions of foods","authors":"Deidre Popovich , Ryan Hamilton","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.04.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.04.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Calorie information is frequently displayed in retail settings where food items are purchased, including grocery stores, hypermarkets, restaurants, cafés, convenience stores, and specialty shops. Some types of retailers are legally required to display calorie counts on packaging, menus, or menu boards. Conventional wisdom suggests that as people become more exposed to calorie information, they will make more informed choices and will be better able to judge the healthiness of foods. This research proposes a more nuanced influence of calorie information on consumers’ food evaluations. Specifically, this research hypothesizes that consumers are often overly confident in their ability to use calories to evaluate foods, an illusory fluency that is likely the result of the ubiquity of calorie information. Consistent with this illusory fluency account, this research finds that when consumers attempt to use calorie information in an evaluation or estimation task, the result can create metacognitive uncertainty, resulting in more moderate (i.e., less extreme) evaluations of the healthiness of foods. After trying to utilize their calorie knowledge in judgments or evaluations, consumers subsequently evaluate unhealthy foods as healthier, and healthy foods as less healthy. Nine experiments support the prediction that metacognitive uncertainty in the usage of calorie information in judgments can lead to more moderate evaluations of the healthiness of foods, and less healthy food choices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 331-347"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020818","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Michael Steiner , Wayne D. Hoyer , Manfred Krafft , Lena Kamp , Christine M. Feddersen-Arden
{"title":"From rarity to desire: How introducing new limited editions, the immediacy of sellouts, and distribution strategies drive brand repurchase intentions","authors":"Michael Steiner , Wayne D. Hoyer , Manfred Krafft , Lena Kamp , Christine M. Feddersen-Arden","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.04.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.04.009","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Limited Editions (LEs) are common in premium markets. Before launching a new LE, managers must decide how many units to produce and, thereby, influence how quickly it sells out. Our research examines (a) how sellout immediacy, (b) a hedonic vs. utilitarian nature of LEs, and (c) distribution strategies (the manufacturer’s app and raffle vs. retailers) influence perceived uniqueness, hedonic, and utilitarian brand value and, finally, brand repurchase intentions. For hedonic LEs, immediate sellouts harm repurchase intentions, whereas non-immediate sellouts do not. Switching to sales via an app and a raffle reduces these negative effects of immediate sellouts. However, for utilitarian LEs, negative outcomes dominate regardless of the sellout immediacy or distribution. These findings highlight that sellouts of utilitarian LEs and immediate sellouts of hedonic LEs are a threat to brand value and repurchase intentions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 409-430"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020822","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lily (Xuehui) Gao , Iguácel Melero-Polo , F. Javier Sese
{"title":"The role of customer experience dimensions in expanding customer–firm relationships: A customer expansion journey approach","authors":"Lily (Xuehui) Gao , Iguácel Melero-Polo , F. Javier Sese","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.05.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Expansion of customer–firm relationships has become crucial for firms to ensure survival and growth. However, siloed management of multiple expansion behaviors represents the dominant approach in academic research and business practice. This study advocates an expansion as a journey approach, where the customer expansion process is modeled through a customer expansion journey comprising a number of states that can be inferred from customer expansion behavioral manifestations and that represent varying intensities in the interdependencies and ties between the customer and the firm. In addition, we adopt a multidimensional view of the customer experience and investigate the roles of the various experience dimensions (i.e., recency, peak, trend, and fluctuation) in determining consumers’ upward and downward movements along the expansion journey at different rates. Using a uniquely rich dataset in the Spanish telecom market for a representative sample of 12,496 customers over four years, and applying advanced hidden Markov modeling techniques, we provide an empirical illustration of the proposed framework. We derive novel theoretical and practical insights into the multifaceted and dynamic customer expansion process, its underlying states, and the role of customer experience dimensions in the transitions across states.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 493-517"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020825","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Understanding retail media: Perspectives and implications for stakeholders","authors":"Koen Pauwels , Ladipo Fagbola","doi":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.08.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jretai.2025.08.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Retail media transforms both the retail and the advertising ecosystem, offering unique opportunities and challenges for consumers, brands, retailers, and regulators. This paper explores retail media through a multi-stakeholder lens, examining its implications from these distinct perspectives. Consumers benefit from personalized shopping experiences but remain concerned about data privacy and ad annoyance. Brand managers see retail media as a critical channel for reaching targeted audiences and driving sales, yet must navigate competitive pressures and incrementality questions. Retailers leverage retail media as a revenue stream and strategic advantage but face the complexities of balancing their roles as platform providers and competitors. Regulators, meanwhile, grapple with ensuring fair competition, data transparency, and consumer protection.</div><div>We connect the dots between these four stakeholder perspectives in our dynamic conceptual framework. We link the consumer, brand manager, retailer, and regulator viewpoints in a diamond-shaped model, highlighting shared objectives such as transparency, trust, and innovation. We offer practical advice on these issues based on our retail media experience. Our research questions and review of recent findings underscore the importance of cross-stakeholder collaboration and the need for a balanced approach that maximizes short-term benefits while ensuring long-term value for all participants in the retail media ecosystem</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48402,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Retailing","volume":"101 3","pages":"Pages 315-330"},"PeriodicalIF":10.2,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145020817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}