ABSTRACTIdentifying the steps of the practice evaluation process, you must understand the basic information regarding definitions and terms commonly used with practice sales. The questions most asked ...by doctors who are considering purchasing a practice.
Peru is the world’s leading exporter of organic coffee. Peruvian organic coffee is largely marketed through farmers’ cooperatives which have helped small farmers transition to organic production, ...earn price premiums over conventional coffee, and access extension services and finance. However, rising temperatures, increasingly volatile rainfall patterns, and the proliferation of pests and diseases make organic production riskier, as organic farmers cannot rely on agrochemicals to protect their farms against production shocks. If members of organic coffee cooperatives respond to production shocks by increasing their sales to private buyers (‘side-selling’), then cooperatives’ financial health could be threatened through reduced bargaining power with buyers and a decrease in scale economies. This paper explores the theoretical incentives for members to side-sell in response to production shocks and gives empirical evidence of how production shocks influence side-selling using panel data from members of two Peruvian specialty coffee cooperatives in 2013 and 2015. The study period coincides with a widespread production shock – the Coffee Leaf Rust (CLR) epidemic of 2012/13 – that decimated coffee production in Peru. We find suggestive evidence that the incidence of CLR on farms is correlated with increased side-selling. Particularly, members with high risk tolerance and high levels of non-coffee income increase side-selling when affected by production shocks. This paper contributes to a growing literature on the determinants of side-selling in agricultural cooperatives by examining the role of production shocks, extending existing theoretical frameworks, and analyzing determinants using panel data methods.
•Production shocks may increase organic coffee cooperative members’ side-selling.•Coffee leaf rust (CLR) decimated Peruvian coffee production in 2012 and 2013.•Farmers have heterogeneous marketing responses to production shocks.•Farmers with higher non-coffee income side-sold more coffee when facing CLR.•Relatively risk-taking members increased side-selling during the CLR epidemic.
Adaptive selling (AS) and customer-oriented selling (COS) constitute two key customer-directed selling behaviors for the success of the modern sales force. However, knowledge regarding the ...organizational factors that can induce salespeople to engage in those behaviors is strikingly limited. Against this background, we develop a comprehensive model that delineates the influences of formal and informal sales controls on AS and COS and, through them, on sales unit effectiveness. Based on a sample of sales managers in a major European Union country, we present new evidence that (a) formal and informal sales controls exert differential impact on salespeople's AS and COS behaviors; (b) AS directly and positively influences sales unit effectiveness; (c) COS affects sales unit effectiveness only indirectly, i.e. by fostering AS; and (d) outcome and cultural controls directly improve sales unit effectiveness. We conclude with a discussion of our findings for academics and practitioners.
•Both formal and informal sales controls affect customer-directed selling behaviors.•Sales controls improve performance both directly and indirectly, i.e. via an increase in adaptive selling and customer-oriented selling.•Different types of sales controls exert different impacts on different behaviors of salespeople.•Customer-oriented selling improves performance only indirectly, by stimulating adaptive selling.
Privacy concerns are an important aspect of business-to-business customers' adoption decision of advanced product—service systems and a significant inhibiting factor. However, empirical evidence on ...its effect is scarce and anecdotal. Based on the observation that customers assess the “privacy vs. service/benefit” trade-off in a calculative way, this study examines how customers' privacy concerns affect their price sensitivity and in turn, the provider's profitability. Specifically, we propose value-based selling as an approach for providers to alleviate the potential negative effects of customers' privacy concerns. The results of a sample of 250 US firms confirm value-based selling's power to disable the privacy concerns–price sensitivity mechanism and mitigate the negative effect of price sensitivity on product-service system provider profitability. However, value-based selling's positive impact on performance is dependent on the level of contract specificity. Thus, value-based selling and contract specificity are complementary arrangements.
•Privacy concerns affect B2B customer adoption of advanced product-service systems.•Drawing on privacy calculative theory a framework and hypotheses are developed.•Next to contracts, value-based selling is proposed as alleviating mechanism.•Empirical results confirm value-based selling's power.•Results suggest value-based selling and contracts are complementary arrangements.
In this paper, we investigate a manufacturer's online selling strategy choice between wholesale selling and agency selling, and discuss its impact in the presence of spillovers from online to offline ...sales. We find that the manufacturer's optimal online selling strategies vary with consumers' online channel acceptance and the extent of the spillover effect. In particular, when the online channel acceptance is high, the manufacturer prefers the agency selling strategy. When the online channel acceptance is moderate, if the sale in the online channel leads to a negative spillover effect on demand in the offline channel, the manufacturer has an incentive to adopt the wholesale selling strategy; otherwise, the agency selling strategy is a preferred choice for the manufacturer. When the online channel acceptance is low, if the sale in the online channel leads to a significant negative or a positive spillover effect on demand in the offline channel, the manufacturer should adopt the agency selling strategy; otherwise, reselling the products to an e-tailer is an optimal choice. Moreover, under certain conditions, we find a "win-win-win" result for the manufacturer, the offline retailer, and the online platform by adopting the agency selling strategy. Finally, we show that two types of spillover (i.e., stimulation effect and cannibalization effect) have different influences on supply chain participants.
Live‐stream selling is becoming increasingly popular in e‐commerce platforms, where streamers sell products through real‐time interactions, while consumers make purchases during live‐stream time. We ...identify several important factors to evaluate the live‐stream selling: (1) the streamer's ability to sell, which brings an extra value to consumers through real‐time illustrations and social interactions; (2) whether the extra value is positively or negatively correlated to consumers’ preference value; and (3) consumers’ cost to purchase through the live‐stream channel since consumers have to participate in the live‐stream show during a fixed time. We find that adding a live‐stream channel is profit‐enhancing only when the streamer's ability to sell is sufficiently high. If we consider the switching demand to the traditional channel from consumers who would have purchased from the live‐stream channel during the live‐stream time, we find that (1) a single live‐stream channel can be optimal, and (2) a high streamer's ability to sell may result in a profit loss. We also find that regardless of the switching demand, live‐stream selling is always more profitable when the extra value is negatively correlated with the consumer's preference value than the scenario when the extra value is positively correlated. These findings not only contribute to the literature on live‐stream selling and price discrimination but also offer guidelines for firms to make strategic decisions on live‐stream selling.
•This paper studies opaque pricing and capacity management in a competing market.•The service providers may fall into the prisoner's dilemma under opaque selling.•An alliance can help the service ...providers escape from the prisoner's dilemma.•Effects of the alliance and conditions when should form the alliance are examined.
To solve the supply and demand mismatch problem, intermediaries have emerged as an opaque channel for service providers to dispose of leftover capacity. This paper focuses on pricing and capacity allocation in opaque selling. We develop a Stackelberg game model, where two capacity-constrained service providers first decide the capacity allocated to an intermediary who then determines the opaque price based on its capacity. We examine the conditions under which the service providers should cooperate with the intermediary, and find that the opaque price and capacity allocation decisions are affected by product type, service providers’ capacity, and commission rate. Moreover, we find that the service providers may fall into the prisoner's dilemma when distributing through the intermediary. It indicates that although opaque selling can bring service providers more profit, it may not help them achieve the optimal profit. In view of this, we propose an alliance policy to eliminate the prisoners’ dilemma and examine when the service providers should ally. Results show that this policy can improve the profits of the service providers and the whole supply chain if the commission rate is adequately low. Our findings suggest that opaque selling can be less beneficial than previously shown and demonstrate the importance of an alliance policy.
In the digital economy, many business-to-business companies expect their salespeople to promote e-commerce channels to customers as alternative ways to purchase. However, salespeople are often ...hesitant to comply with this approach, which despite its high practical relevance, has been rarely examined by academic research. Therefore, the authors develop a theoretical framework outlining key determinants of salespeople’s promotion of e-commerce channels. To this end, the authors integrate relational-selling theory with goal-setting theory and test their conceptualization using a multilevel data set comprising surveys of 68 salespeople, 220 customers, and objective company data. The results show that salespeople who are more relational-selling oriented are less likely to promote the use of e-commerce channels—especially if a customer has a negative attitude toward e-commerce or if competitors are focused on personal selling. With these findings, our study helps managers improve their salespeople’s essential role as promoters of e-commerce channels.
Purpose
This study aims to address the need to study salespersons’ thought self-leadership (TSL) and its effectiveness through the interplay of self-efficacy, skills and behavior at the individual ...level. It also advances the agenda of integrating self-leadership into marketing literature.
Design/methodology/approach
A model was tested using survey data collected from salespeople within pharmaceutical companies located in India and other Asian countries. A structural equation model was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results suggest an interesting interplay between a salesperson’s TSL and his/her sales performance. The results also demonstrate the relationship between TSL and self-efficacy and the mediation mechanism through which self-efficacy influences sales performance. Results support the role of TSL as a distal predictor of performance and delineate the complexity of the mediation mechanism through theoretical grounding and empirical evidence.
Research limitations/implications
The research suggests that a salesperson’s TSL relates positively with the sales performance through three process variables; self-efficacy, selling skills and adaptive selling behavior. The results should encourage managers to leverage salesperson’s TSL strategies to build a self-leading sales force and optimize supervision cost. Moreover, training the sales force for enhanced TSL has immediate payoffs in terms of increased selling effectiveness. The study also discusses theoretical implications.
Originality/value
By examining TSL in the sales context, the study makes an original contribution to the extant literature. The results of the study enrich the extant information on self-leadership and sales performance linkages by suggesting a mediation mechanism and proposing an integrated framework with selling skills and adaptive selling behavior.
