This dissertation explores consumer-based strategies in retailing. Consumer-based strategies prioritize understanding and responding to customer needs, desires, and behaviors. These strategies emerged in the past seventy years because they align business strategies and operations with customer preferences, leading to increased customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and long-term profitability. Over time, the academic field and business practice have shifted their focus from merely satisfying customer needs to enhancing the overall customer experience and, most recently, inspiring customers. This shift underscores the recognition that in today's market, simply fulfilling existing needs and achieving customer satisfaction is no longer sufficient for differentiation; creating memorable experiences and inspirational moments is crucial for driving customer engagement and loyalty. The dissertation is structured around three essays that collectively advance the field of consumer-based retail strategies in retailing. The first essay offers a systematic literature review on cross-selling and cross-buying, clarifying their definitions and strategic roles in retail organizations. This essay addresses the conceptual ambiguity between these constructs and provides a comprehensive framework for their application in modern consumer-centric retailing. The second essay investigates the impact of thematic congruent in-store visual cues on consumer perception and behavior in grocery retailing through a quasi-experimental field study. The findings demonstrate that visually harmonized store environments significantly enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, foot traffic, and sales, emphasizing the importance of creating inspirational shopping experiences. The third essay presents a framework for managerial considerations in Metaverse retailing, exploring how immersive and personalized virtual experiences can inspire and engage customers, thereby representing a new frontier for consumer-based strategies in retailing. Overall, each essay–individually and as part of an interconnected set–underscores the transition from customer satisfaction to customer experience and now to customer inspiration. This dissertation offers valuable insights for academia and retail practice, showcasing the critical importance of evolving consumer-based strategies in response to changing market dynamics and technological advancements.

The second issue of the Swiss Logistics Market Study in 2024 focuses on trends, sustainability, geopolitical crises and automation in the Swiss logistics market. The trend radar illustrates the current technological, social and economic trends in the Swiss logistics market and their dynamics. The focus of the analysis of developments in the freight transport market is on determining the sustainability of logistics. In addition, mode-specific developments in road, rail, air and shipping are examined in order to describe the current market situation. Besides the recurring static topics, the issue includes two dynamic topics, geopolitical crises and automation: the complexity along global trade routes is constantly increasing due to global crises. Established flows of goods have had to be adapted within a very short space of time, which is now leading to new challenges. Delays and cost increases in supply chains are the logical consequence. In this issue, we also explore the question of how much digitalisation actually makes sense. Could Switzerland be described as an Eldorado for automation in warehouse logistics? Issue 02-2024 of the Swiss Logistics Market Study provides answers to these and further questions.

Although the field of organizational unlearning has recently gained increased interest, its conceptual foundations and raison d’être are still debated. In this review, we aim to revisit various discourses and arguments to advance the understanding of organizational unlearning in management and organization studies. Using an integrative literature review approach with systematic elements, we examine the existing body of research on organizational unlearning. We review the literature from different perspectives, focusing on a process-based understanding in terms of why and how organizations intentionally discard knowledge. Based on our review, we develop an integrative framework that portrays organizational unlearning as a dynamically unfolding process over time. We propose implications and offer research directions that will allow future researchers to develop a more profound understanding of the concept.