Changes in Customer Preferences for Furniture in Slovenia

In the last decade, the Slovenian furniture industry market has experienced a number of changes, especially with the arrival of new retailers on the market. The situation is such that furniture manufacturers and retailers are still trying to determine the best ways to adjust to new customer demands. A well known thing is that customer satisfaction is the key component for the success of the business. In order for companies to be more successful, it is important to get better insight into customers’ needs and wants. In line with this, the purpose of this study, which compare the surveys conducted in 2010 and 2019, was to observe and analyse changes in the preferences of customers for furniture: materials, attributes, and styles when deciding on new furniture in Slovenia. The results of this research showed that customers’ preferences for furniture materials have changed in the last decade. Similarly, the factors that influence their purchase decisions when buying interior and exterior furniture have changed as well. It was found that wood was widely preferred as a furniture material among the respondents in both years studied.

Supply Chain with Customer-Based Two-Level Credit Policies under an Imperfect Quality Environment

The present model develops a three-echelon supply chain, in which the manufacturer offers full permissible delay to the whole seller, while the latter, in turn, adopts distinct trade credit policies for his subsequent downstream retailers. The type of credit policy being offered to the retailers is decided on the basis of their past profiles. Hence, the whole seller puts forth full and partial permissible delays to his old and new retailers respectively. This study considers bad debts from the portion of new retailers who fail to make up for the delayed part of the partial payment. The analysis shows that it is beneficial for the whole seller to make shorter contracts, particularly with new retailers, along with the fetching of a higher fraction of initial purchase cost from them. In addition to the above-described scenario, the lot received by the whole seller from the manufacturer is not perfect, and it contains some defects for which he employs an inspection process before selling the items to the retailers. In order to make the study more realistic, Type-I, as well as Type-II misclassification errors, and the case of out-of-stock are considered. The impact of Type-I error has been found to be crucial in the study. The present paper determines the optimal policy for the whole seller by maximizing the expected total profit per unit time. For the optimality of the solution, theoretical results are provided. Finally, a numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are done to validate the model.

The dietary impact of introducing new retailers of fruits and vegetables into a community: results from a systematic review

ObjectiveTo investigate the potential dietary impact of the opening of new retailers of healthy foods.DesignSystematic review of the peer-reviewed research literature.SettingReferences published before November 2015 were retrieved from MEDLINE, EMBASE and Web of Science databases using keyword searches.SubjectsThe outcome of the review was change in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults.ResultsOf 3514 references retrieved, ninety-two articles were reviewed in full text, and twenty-three articles representing fifteen studies were included. Studies used post-test only (n 4), repeated cross-sectional (n 4) and repeated measures designs (n 7) to evaluate the dietary impact of supermarket (n 7), farmers’ market (n 4), produce stand (n 2) or mobile market (n 2) openings. Evidence of increased fruit and vegetable consumption was most consistent among adults who began shopping at the new retailer. Three of four repeated measures studies found modest, albeit not always statistically significant, increases in fruit and vegetable consumption (range 0·23–0·54 servings/d) at 6–12 months after baseline. Dietary change among residents of the broader community where the new retailer opened was less consistent.ConclusionsThe methodological quality of studies, including research designs, sampling methods, follow-up intervals and outcome measures, ranged widely. Future research should align methodologically with previous work to facilitate meta-analytic synthesis of results. Opening a new retailer may result in modest short-term increases in fruit and vegetable consumption among adults who choose to shop there, but the potential longer-term dietary impact on customers and its impact on the broader community remain unclear.