Retail industry

Over the last decade, the retail industry has had a phenomenal growth. All figures show their success and efficiency and many studies have shown the role of customer reviews in encouraging ambivalent purchasers to buy items online. There have been numerous studies on why people read and trust these comments and taking for granted the important role of customer reviews in determining buying decision, this study endeavors to identify and explain the different factors involved in making a comment “useful.” We took an Iranian retail website and collected comments on perceived “usefulness” of each review. Our results showed that perceived level of usefulness was related to the word count of the comments, personal experience of the writer with the product, emotional description of the product, and mentioning the strength/weakness points of the product.

To fulfill customers' expectations in the food distribution industry, empowering salespeople is important. Therefore, this study aims to identify salespeople's competencies and construct a competency model. This research is an applied research from the perspective of its objectives, and it is conducted with a mixed method (qualitative-quantitative, respectively). Grounded theory has been used for model presentation in the qualitative section and Semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect information. The data set was organized in 172 codes that included initial propositions, 16 categories at the first level, 7 categories at the second level, and 3 categorical clusters. The final result was prepared in the form of an initial theory and finally, hypotheses was tested by means of quantitative techniques, such as structural equations, descriptive statistics, and confirmatory factor analysis. A researcher-made questionnaire collected the quantitative data provided by a statistical population of 214 active salespeople in food distribution companies of Iran.