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This work examines the role of a non-price variable, shelf-space in inter-brand competition. The retailer introduces a private brand to control the prices of the national brand, which acts as a monopoly in the absence of any competition from other brands. The private brands compete with national brands for demand, which is a function of the allocated shelf space and the brand price. We propose a game-theoretic model involving a national brand and a private brand who compete horizontally in the supermarkets for shelf space. A comparative study is undertaken through two different cases. In the first case, the retailer promotes the private brand manufactured by itself followed by the second case wherein retailer sells the private brand produced by another manufacturer. The retailer allocates shelf space to both the national as well as private brand simultaneously to capture the competition. The manufacturer of the national brand acts as the stackelberg given its power of setting wholesale prices. The equilibrium of the profit maximization game is expressed in terms of prices, shelf-spaces and profit margin of the players. This work is an attempt to gain insights on the conditions of allocation which are profitable for the manufacturer taking into account the consumer preferences between competing brands. The study also indicates that manufacturer’s profits reduces when they compete for space and make the retailer dominant, when the latter is only involved in shelf space allocation without any in-house production. We contribute as building blocks to understand how shelf-space limitation intensifies the manufacturer-retailer competition and also obtain managerial insight on disproportionate distribution of profits.

Purpose Online food delivery (OFD) has witnessed momentous consumer adoption in the past few years, and COVID-19, if anything, is only accelerating its growth. This paper captures numerous intricate issues arising from the complex relationship among the stakeholders because of the enhanced scale of the OFD business. The purpose of this paper is to highlight publication trends in OFD and identify potential future research themes. Design/methodology/approach The authors conducted a tri-method study – systematic literature review, bibliometric and thematic content analysis – of 43 articles on OFD published in 24 journals from 2015 to 2021 (March). The authors used VOSviewer to perform citation analysis. Findings Systematic literature review of the existing OFD research resulted in six potential research themes. Further, thematic content analysis synthesized and categorized the literature into four knowledge clusters, namely, (i) digital mediation in OFD, (ii) dynamic OFD operations, (iii) OFD adoption by consumers and (iv) risk and trust issues in OFD. The authors also present the emerging trends in terms of the most influential articles, authors and journals. Practical implications This paper captures the different facets of interactions among various OFD stakeholders and highlights the intricate issues and challenges that require immediate attention from researchers and practitioners. Originality/value This is one of the few studies to synthesize OFD literature that sheds light on unexplored aspects of complex relationships among OFD stakeholders through four clusters and six research themes through a conceptual framework.

The academic interest in Online Grocery Shopping (OGS) has proliferated in retailing and business management over the past two decades. Previous research on OGS was primarily focused on consumer-level consequences such as purchase intention, purchase decision, and post-purchase behavior. However, there is a lack of literature integrating intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence the growth of OGS and its impact on purchase outcomes. To address this, we conduct a multi-method review combining traits of a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis. Analyzing 145 articles through word cloud and keyword co-occurrence analysis, we identify publication trends (top journals, articles) and nine thematic clusters. We develop an integrated conceptual framework encompassing the antecedents, mediators, moderators, and consequences of OGS. Finally, we outline future research directions using Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methods framework to serve as a reference point for future researchers working in OGS.

PurposePay-what-you-want (PWYW) is a pricing strategy implemented in a variety of settings like supermarkets and museums, in which consumers determine the price they are willing to pay for a product or service based on their perceived utility. The authors propose an analytical model to investigate the impact of PWYW delivery pricing on the online food delivery (OFD) platforms.Design/methodology/approachUsing a game-theoretic model, the authors characterize the equilibrium as a function of the platform's average delivery cost and the consumer's social preferences parameters like fairness and reciprocity. The authors derive the parametric conditions under which PWYW generates higher profits for the platform compared to the traditional pay-as-asked delivery pricing.FindingsFor the PWYW strategy to be profitable, the average delivery cost to the platform should be low. Therefore, OFD platform managers should focus on reducing delivery costs. The authors also identify the feasible region in which the platform managers need to maintain the consumer's social preferences.Practical implicationsUnder PWYW, the authors recommend that the platform managers impose a minimum delivery fee which consumers can use as a benchmark to minimize zero delivery fee payments and consumers' free-riding tendencies simultaneously. This allows OFD platforms to extract online orders from highly price-conscious consumers.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies to explore the innovative application of PWYW to a particular segment of delivery pricing in OFD platforms. The authors establish that the overall consumer surplus and social welfare are higher under the PWYW strategy, forming a solid ground for its implementation in OFD platforms.