Advanced Technologies Management for Retailing

The application of advanced technologies to point of sale systems is a promising and relatively unexplored field of study, in particular when considering the introduction of digital content and technologies allowing consumers to interact with products in new ways. Many e-retailers already exploit the opportunities offered by interactive technologies, such as 3D virtual models, in order to enhance consumers shopping experience. Their use in stores, however, is still limited. The development and use of new shopping assistants for supporting and influencing consumers during their shopping experience plays a key role for both retailers and researchers. Advanced Technologies Management for Retailing: Frameworks and Cases contributes to our understanding of applications of new technologies and their impact on the design and development of point of sale systems and on consumers’ behavior. This volume covers a large range of topics that contribute to understanding consumers’ behavior in new computer-aided retailing environments, and how this influences buying behavior while providing useful knowledge on the management of these new technologies and on the management of the digital contents as a reliable teaching resource for teachers and researchers.

Eleonora Pantano is a Post doc research fellow at University of Calabria (Italy). She holds a PhD in "Psychology of Programming and Artificial Intelligence." Her research interests are related to the applications of advanced technologies to retailing and tourism, with emphasis on the investigation of consumer behaviour in pervasive environments. She has been Assistant teacher of Integrated Marketing Communication, Engineering Faculty, University of Calabria; visiting lecturer at College of Business, University of Illinois (USA); visiting lecturer at Master in Business and Administration (MBA) Marketing Module at the Faculty of Economics & Business, University of Zagreb (HR). Furthermore, she is member of the Editorial Board of numerous international journals, guest editor of the special issue of Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services on Applications of New Technologies to Retailing, 17(3); and of International Journal of Digital Content Technology and its Applications on Digital contents management for improving consumers experience, 4(7). She was the Highly Commended Award winner of the 2008/2009 Emerald/EMRBI Business Research Award for Young Researchers.

Harry Timmermans holds a PhD degree in Geography/Urban and Regional Planning. He studied at the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands. His dissertation concerned a theory of the functional and spatial structure and the dynamics of central place systems. Since 1976 he is affiliated with the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning of the Eindhoven University of Technology, The Nether¬lands. First as an assistant professor of Quantitative and Urban Geography, later as an associate professor of Urban Planning Research. In 1986 he was appointed chaired professor of Urban Planning at the same institute. In 1992 he founded the European Institute of Retailing and Services Studies (EIRASS) in Eindhoven, the Netherlands (a sister institute of the Canadian Institute of Retailing and Services Studies). His main research interests concern the study of human judgement and choice processes, mathematical modelling of urban systems and spatial interaction and choice pattens and the development of decision support and expert systems for application in urban planning. He has published several books and many articles in journals in the fields of marketing, urban planning, architecture and urban design, geography, environmental psychology, transportation research, urban and regional economics, urban sociology, leisure sciences and computer science.