Readwell: A Book Recommender Android Application with a Point-of-Sales System

The COVID-19 pandemic has given people much free time. With this, the researchers want to encourage these people to read instead of scrolling through social media. A barrier to reading for many people is not knowing what to read and disinterest in popular books that they would find when they search online. The existing websites that encourage book reading rely on social networking for their recommendations, while the collaborative filtering algorithms applied to books do not exist in the mobile application form. Readwell is a book recommender Android app with a Point-of-Sales System created using Java, Python, and SQLite databases. The information regarding the books was web scraped from the Goodreads website. It aims to apply the more efficient collaborative filtering algorithm to an accessible mobile application that allows users to directly buy the books they are interested in, thus encouraging the reading and buying of books. The researchers created unit test cases to validate the different functionalities of the application. © 2022 IEEE.

Visual analysis of mask sales data based on crawler

The outbreak of COVID-19 makes people feel distant from each other, and masks have become one of the indispensable articles in People's Daily life. At present, there are many brands of masks with various types and uneven quality. In order to understand the current market of masks and the sales of different brands, users can choose masks with perfect quality. This paper uses Python web crawler technology, based on the input of the word "mask", crawl JD website sales data, through data visualization technology drawing histogram, pie chart, the word cloud, etc., for goods compared with the relationship between price, average price of all brands, brands, average distribution of analysis and evaluation of user information, In this way, the sales situation, price distribution and quality evaluation of each store of the product can be visually displayed. At the same time, it also provides some reference for other users who need to buy the product. © The Authors. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY 3.0 License.

Impacts of emotional regulation, adaptive selling and customer-oriented behavior on sales performance: the moderating role of job resourcefulness

PurposeGiven the increasing intensity of highly competitive markets, this study aims to evaluate the effect of salespeople's emotional regulation, adaptive selling and customer-oriented behavior on sales performance.Design/methodology/approachA research model was tested by using a sample of 288 respondents from the logistics industry in Taiwan. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships between emotional regulation, adaptive selling, job resourcefulness, customer-oriented behavior and sales performance.FindingsThe results indicate that emotional regulation, adaptive selling and job resourcefulness can improve customer-oriented behavior, and that customer-oriented behavior and job resourcefulness can enhance sales performance. By highlighting the role of job resourcefulness, the authors find a positive moderating effect among these four dimensions.Originality/valueThe findings can help salespeople integrate customer-oriented behaviors into strategic changes to regulate their own emotions and those of others to productively address and resolve difficult business conditions. The theoretical and managerial implications of this work's contributions to international logistics are also discussed.

Data Model Study for Advancement of Japanese PSI Management Introducing the Concepts of S&OP

Under the impact of COVID-19, the global economy exhibits obvious slowdown. In such situation, the issues on how to keep balance between supply and demand in SCM (Supply Chain Management) operation have been more apparent than before. For SCM rebuilding, S&OP received extensive attention worldwide. However, there are few examples of successful implementation of S&OP in Japan because Japanese have not been growing accustomed to the phrase S&OP, although the challenges in SCM operations and PSI (Product, Sales, Inventory) management are recognized. Thus, no clear and exact solution is found to guide the operation. In order to further improve the current management level, a new design proposal of data model is rendered to advance the current PSI management that introduces the concepts of S&OP. Especially, we will address the motivation why we need use multidimensional database architecture to design the S&OP process instead of using RDB (Relational Database) which is often used in ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). © 2022 IEEE.

Implementation of Digital Marketing in Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Indonesia During the COVID-19 Pandemic

In Indonesia, micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) cover nearly 90% of the business entities and become the backbone of national economic growth. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, they encountered challenges in their marketing, which impacted their sales volume. Jember Regency has the highest number of MSMEs in East Java, Indonesia, and is renowned for agro-industry products such as peanut cookies (Kue Kacang). However, most MSMEs in Jember are lacking in applying digital marketing. It is not in line with the acceleration and development of the technology and information flows in 4.0, which has required MSMEs to adapt to these developments in their business. The purpose of this study was to reveal the implementation of digital marketing and the obstacles encountered in improving their sales performance. This study applied a qualitative approach. The research data was collected through semistructured in-depth interviews, observation, and documentation. The informants involved in this study are business owners of peanut cookie MSMEs in Jember. This study found that they use the owner's private account on Facebook and WhatsApp as their primary digital marketing platforms, while others used Instagram and TikTok. Surprisingly, none of them used e-commerce platforms such as due to their cluelessness with the system. In addition, the shortage of input production during the peak season has been a recurring issue for decades. Further, the result discovered that digital marketing makes it easier for MSMEs owners to communicate with consumers, provide information, and expand the market during the COVID-19 pandemic. © 2023 IEEE.

Lessons from covid-19. Anticipatory breach as a feasible alternative to force majeure and hardship under Art. 79 CISG

Article 79 of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods imposes very strict requirements for its application as a ground for exemption from liability. As an alternative to it and in line with modern relational contracts theories, this article proposes, in situations where there are circumstances that prevent a normal development of the contract, the use of the anticipatory breach mechanism contained in Articles 71 to 73 of the Convention, especially for contracts of a certain complexity and of medium and long term, such as supply contracts. © 2023, UNIV CARLOSIII MADRID. All rights reserved.

Retail Marketing Communication and the Consumer Behaviour of Selected Generations

Cábyová reviews Retail Marketing Communication and the Consumer Behaviour of Selected Generations by A. Kusá, T. Fasiang and D. Kollárová.

Store Congestion Forecast under the Pandemic using Point of Sales Statistics

Under the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to balance social distancing and continuous economic activities. In this study, we report on our developed service that forecasts the congestion level of regional commercial facilities using point-of-sales (POS) statistics. POS statistics data were collected for over a year from 150 commercial facilities in Tokyo. Through the analysis of a total of over 100 million customers, we clarified the factors that affect congestion levels of commercial facilities in each ward of Tokyo. Based on this analysis, we developed a congestion forecast model that predicts future congestion levels from several factors such as a big event, business restrictions, and weather. We implemented a web service incorporating this model and published estimated congestion levels both on our website and a television program. The experimental results show that the model has a high prediction accuracy with a coefficient of determination greater than 0.95 on average, which implies that big data from POS has great potential for value creation under the pandemic. © 2022 IEEE.

Tracking changes in tourism demand with point-of-sale data: The case of Portugal

This study extends the literature on big data applied to tourism by validating the significance of point-of-sale (POS) electronic transactions, which have received little attention within tourism literature, as a reliable and effective alternative to surveys on guests stays at tourist accommodation establishments. Compared with official statistics on occupancy of tourist accommodation establishments, data on POS transactions tend to exhibit greater volatility and a less adverse year-on-year variation during the COVID-19 pandemic in Portugal. Still, both data sources reveal the same underlying trend. POS electronic payments, namely, at lodging establishments, deliver timely data for most municipalities in Portugal, filling in significant data gaps in many low-density areas, where statistical confidentiality is imposed in tourism indicators. This supports POS data's effectiveness to analyse regional inequalities at the municipal level, allowing to gain a clearer understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 in domestic tourism. © The Author(s) 2022.

The Effect of COVID-19 on Foreign Direct Investment

This study empirically examines how the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has impacted foreign direct investment (FDI), using the quarterly data on bilateral FDI flows from 173 home to 192 host economies from the first quarter of 2019 to the second quarter of 2021. The severity of COVID-19 in host economies adversely affected FDI in the manufacturing sector regardless of the entry mode, but the effect of home economies' COVID-19 situation on FDI was insignificant. On the other hand, in the services sector, the severity of COVID-19 in both host and home economies has significantly negative impact on greenfield FDI, not on cross-border M&A.

Antibiotic dispensing practices during COVID-19 and implications for antimicrobial resistance (AMR): parallel mystery client studies in Uganda and Tanzania.

BACKGROUND: Over-the-counter antibiotic access is common in low-and-middle-income countries and this may accelerate antimicrobial resistance. Our study explores critical aspects of the drug seller-client interaction and antibiotic dispensing patterns for simulated COVID-19 symptoms during the pandemic in two study sites in Tanzania and Uganda, countries with different government responses to the pandemic. METHODS: Research assistants posing as clients approached different types of drug sellers such as pharmacies (Pharms), drug shops (DSs), and accredited drug dispensing outlets (ADDOs) in Mwanza, Tanzania (nPharms = 415, nADDOs = 116) and Mbarara, Uganda (nPharms = 440, nDSs = 67), from June 10 to July 30, 2021. The mystery clients held no prescription and sought advice for simulated COVID-19 symptoms from the drug sellers. They documented the quality of their interaction with sellers and the type of drugs dispensed. RESULTS: Adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures and vigilance to COVID-19 symptoms was low in both sites but significantly higher in Uganda than in Tanzania. A higher percentage of drug sellers in Mbarara (Pharms = 36%, DSs = 35%, P-value = 0.947) compared to Mwanza (Pharms = 9%, ADDOs = 4%, P-value = 0.112) identified the client's symptoms as possibly COVID-19. More than three-quarters of drug sellers that sold prescription-only medicines in both Mbarara (Pharms = 86%, DSs = 89%) and Mwanza (Pharms = 93%, ADDOs = 97%) did not ask the MCs for a prescription. A relatively high percentage of drug sellers that sold prescription-only medicines in Mwanza (Pharms = 51%, ADDOs = 67%) compared to Mbarara (Pharms = 31%, DSs = 42%) sold a partial course without any hesitation. Of those who sold antibiotics, a higher proportion of drug sellers in Mbarara (Pharms = 73%, DSs = 78%, P-value = 0.580) compared to Mwanza (Pharms = 40% ADDOs = 46%, P-value = 0.537) sold antibiotics relevant for treating secondary bacterial infections in COVID-19 patients. CONCLUSION: Our study highlights low vigilance towards COVID-19 symptoms, widespread propensity to dispense prescription-only antibiotics without a prescription, and to dispense partial doses of antibiotics. This implies that drug dispensing related to COVID-19 may further drive AMR. Our study also highlights the need for more efforts to improve antibiotic stewardship among drug sellers in response to COVID-19 and to prepare them for future health emergencies.

Time-aware sport goods sale prediction for healthcare with privacy-preservation.

Sports industry has been playing an important role in achieving good healthcare for public. However, with the advent of COVID-19, sports industry has been influenced significantly and the industry scale is decreased considerably. In this situation, how to accurately predict the sports industry scale in terms of production and consumption is becoming a practical and valuable task, because the whole world's economy is not growing stably and users' demand to sport goods is fluctuating sharply. However, three challenges are often existing in the sports industry scale prediction. First of all, there are so many kinds of sport goods that it is hard to quickly predict their future production or consumption scales accurately. Second, for a certain sport commodity, its production or consumption scale is often related to time especially in the COVID-19 environment. Third, sports industry scale data often contain some privacy, which probably disables data stakeholders to disclose their data. In view of these three challenges, a novel sports industry scale prediction approach (named SISP) is proposed for healthcare, which is basically according to time series analysis. Through SISP approach, we can quickly and accurately predict the future production or consumption scales of sport goods, in a privacy-aware way. At last, we validate the feasibility of the proposed SISP approach in this paper.

Online Auctions End Time and its Impact on Sales Success - Analysis of the Odds Ratio on a Selected Central European Market

Research background: E-commerce is developing rapidly, especially during the Covid19 pandemic. This fact can benefit individuals who want to sell their already used goods. Importantly, for sellers, it is not always a priority to get the highest price, but sometimes it is simply effective to get rid of the goods at a satisfactory price. Purpose: The aim of this article is to analyze the impact of the broadly understood time of the end of the online auction on the success or failure of a sale. Research methodology: In the study, the raw odds ratio was used for the effect of a single variable. Next, the impact of specific variables within the set of risk factors was determined using the logistic regression. Results: Auctions ending in the evening were found to be more than 150% more likely to be successful, while night hours reduced the chance of success by 50%. The day's most favorable for sales are Monday and Tuesday, the opposite pattern was observed for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. An interesting relationship was found for the second half of the month, which increased the possibility of selling the goods by over 20%. Novelty: In the literature there are almost none that would focus on the analysis of the possibility of ending the auction with a sale (i.e. success) in the context of the auction end time on the Central European market. This issue is usually discussed on the side and has not been analyzed comprehensively - this paper is a step forward in this direction. © 2022 Łukasz Zakonnik et al., published by Sciendo.

COVID-19 Impact on Ethanol Sales in Fuel Stations: An ITS Econometric Analysis

This paper provides estimates of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Brazilian Ethanol sales. To this end, weekly data on Ethanol sales volumes are analyzed through an ITS SARIMA model and a counterfactual analysis covering the 2019–2020. We find that the real effect of COVID-19 was a reduction above 77.97% in Brazil after the first COVID-19 death, in March 2020, and still a decrease of about 50.15% at the end of 2020. The empirical evidence confirms that the impact of the pandemic crisis, the counterfactual analysis allows estimating the real effect of COVID-19 is on average 3.76% greater than the observed against an index date reference. These results suggest that ethanol sales in Brazil were more affected than only when comparing previous results to the effects of the pandemic. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

IMPACT OF THE CHANGED CIRCUMSTANCES (COVID-19 PANDEMIC) ON THE POSITION OF CONSUMERS IN PACKAGE TRAVEL CONTRACTS

It is a well-known fact that tourism as an industry makes an extremely large contribution to the Croatian economy. In tourist traffic, the most frequent type of travel, travel is organized under holidays package travel contracts. One of the issues that have become extremely topical in the last few years, due to the situation of the Covid-19 outbreak, is the question of the impact of the changed circumstances on the possibility and conditions of termination of package travel contracts and the rights and obligations arising from such method of termination of the contract for the contracting parties. Due to the importance of this issue, the legal provisions of the Law on the Provision of Services in Tourism have also been amended, which stipulates special conditions related to the termination of the contract and the issuance of vouchers under the conditions of the specific circumstances caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, relating to outstanding package travel contracts, which were to be implemented after 1st of March 2020. The legalframework of the provision ofpackage services, impact of the changed circumstances on the possibility and conditions of termination of package travel contracts as well as the legal consequences of the termination of the contract, as the topics of this paper, are all of great importance both for the providers of these services, namely travel agents, as well as users of these services - passengers (consumers).

Knowledge, Attitude and Perspective of community pharmacists in the sale of COVID-19 self-test kits in Ipoh, Perak

Introduction: Malaysia experienced a surge in the number of active COVID-19 cases. As a result, the government came out with several measures and standard operating procedures to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most significant measures is by allowing the sale of COVID-19 self-test kits. This enables the public to do a self-test when they are close contacts or exhibiting symptoms. It enables immediate self-quarantine when found positive. This will restrict the spread of the COVID- 19 virus. Community pharmacies around the country have been in the forefront in selling the COVID-19 self-test kits. Their accessibility and role in counselling has made community pharmacists as an important figure in selling and counselling the public on the sale and use of COVID-19 self-test kits. Objective(s): The objective of the study is to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and perspectives of community pharmacists in the sale of COVID-19 self-test kits in Ipoh, Perak. Material(s) and Method(s): A cross-sectional survey study design was used to conduct this study. It was carried out via an online structured questionnaire distributed among the community pharmacists in Ipoh, Perak. 62 community pharmacists in Ipoh responded to this survey. Result(s) and Conclusion(s): It was found that 88.71% of the respondents have a good knowledge about the COVID-19 self-test kits. Around 58% of them portrayed a moderate attitude while selling the COVID-19 self-test kits, which included the demonstration and counselling. Whereas 58.2% of the community pharmacists showed moderate level of perspective while selling COVID-19 self-test kits sales. There is a need for the community pharmacists to undergo more training on COVID-19 self-test kits to improve their level of attitude and perspective when they sell the kits to the public. This will improve the management of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

DEVELOPMENT OF E-COMMERCE IN TIMES OF THE CORONA CRISIS

In 2020 and 2021, the coronavirus crises lead to an extraordinary e-commerce growth. Based on an empirical study among 365 online retailers in Switzerland and Austria, the e-commerce developments during the corona crises were investigated. Nine out of ten online retailers demonstrate a sustainable e-commerce growth, and more than half have gained many new customers. In addition, many existing customers buy more frequently from online retailers, and/or buy larger quantities. In 2020, most online shops had a strong order increase in product groups like garden, do-it-yourself, toys, furniture, sports equipment, and food (more than 20% per year). Due to the e-commerce growth, online retailers are faced with different challenges in procurement, management, customer service, distribution, and IT. Moreover, new sales channels like messenger and social commerce arise and classical formats are adapted. Therefore, omni-channel retailers test showrooms, click and collect, experiential, self-service, or pop-up stores. Finally, this contribution provides strategic and operational implications for online shop operators. © 2022 IADIS Press. All rights reserved.

Mobile Application Design: Sale of Clothes Through Electronic Commerce

During the COVID-19 pandemic, small clothing sales companies lost economic income and customers due to a lack of digital transformation, causing the dismissal of many employees. Due to this problem, our objective is to design an ecommerce mobile application for the sale of clothes, so that Small and medium-sized enterprises dedicated to this area generate income and retain their customers. For this, the Rational Unified Process (RUP) methodology was applied, because this methodology provides a structured way for companies or developers to visualize the development of the software, and for the validation by expert judgment, the survey and the questionnaire were used as instruments. Obtaining as a result a positive rating for the design of the mobile application and its acceptance to accommodate what is reflected. In conclusion, the e-commerce mobile application was successfully designed, backed by expert judgment, so that Small and medium-sized enterprises can offer their products and generate income, as well as build customer loyalty. © 2022. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications. All Rights Reserved.

Applicability of the Vienna Sale Agreement (CISG) for Advanced Purchase Agreements of COVID-19 Vaccines in EU Member States

The European Commission has signed advanced purchase agreements with various vaccine manufacturers for the production, purchase and supply of the COVID-19 vaccine in the EU. Some parts of the agreement texts with AstraZeneca, CurevacAg and Pfizer Inc./BioNTech have been blacked out. In these agreements, it is understood that Belgian courts are competent and Belgian law is chosen. In a dispute, it is possible for the competent courts to apply CISG since Belgium is a party to the CISG. Even if choice of law hasn't been made, the fact that the workplaces of all parties to these ageements are party to CISG, makes the CISG applicable. This study evaluates the applicability of the CISG to advanced purchase agreements (especially made with AstraZeneca) in EU Member States.

Distribution as a strategic key in the publishing sector Evolution of the network of points of sale

This communication has a two fold purpose, on the one hand, to partially present the results of a project covering the current situation of the periodical publications industry across Spain and, on the other, to serve as a starting point for a subsequent analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic onto this sector. This report concentrates on analysing the importance of distribution within the printed periodical publications sector and herein addresses the study of the evolution of the points of sale in Spain, drastically affected by the impacts of Digital Society. The approach focuses on a territorial perspective, with the analysis divided by autonomous regions. Points of sale data and associated trends are compared against population and area data in order to determine the evolution in terms of geographical coverage, given the particular nature of the type of product that is commercialized - to some extent it acts as a guarantor of a fundamental right, in terms of democratic quality, such as the access to information. The results, based on the available data comprising the time preceding the COVID pandemic, are not encouraging at all, reporting a marked decline in the number of points of sale across the nation and, subsequently, a drop in the number of stores per square kilometer and by population. This indicates a fall in the ease of access to these products by the general population: in some cases, these being the only ones that specific groups of society have when accessing information provided by printed publications, as well as for certain entertainment purposes, in particular in regions of the country identified with the ‘España Vaciada’ (the hollowed-out Spain) slogan. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.