Retail in the Digital City

Abstract

Conventional high street retailers face a multitude of challenges if they are to survive and thrive. Some of these difficulties arise from structural and economic issues; others may be sociological and demographic. However, to thrive, retailers must be perceived as being competitive, and must adopt innovative and invigorating strategies to maximise the potential of their situations while offsetting the limitations. In this paper, it is proposed that a judicious combination of low-cost Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) could enable small retailers to harness the benefits of the information society and provide services congruent with the digital city concept. As an illustration of the issues involved, pertinent results from a systematic end-user evaluation of EasiShop are discussed.

Smart cities: Advances in research—An information systems perspective

“…Numerous closely related definitions of smart cities have been proposed over the past decade, with a plethora of differing terms and explanations suggesting a lack of a unified and accepted definition (Chong et al 2018;Schaffers et al 2012;Zhuhadar et al 2017). Studies tend to reference a number of alternative terms within the literature, such as: digital cities (Sun and Poole, 2010;Keegan et al 2012), intelligent cities (Tan, 1999), wired cities (Targowski, 1990), information city (Stolfi & Sussman, 2001;Sproull & Patterson, 2004;Fietkiewicz et al 2017), ubiquitous cities (Shin, 2009) and sensing city (Mone, 2015). The existing definitions tend to focus on different aspects, for example, the majority of definitions of smart cities tend to focus on the role of technology.…”

“…Peng et al (2017 discussed: smart aspects of: transportation services, healthcare services, energy services, public services, building management services, waste management services and education services. Keegan et al (2012) proposed that a city will be an effective functioning entity when it integrates disparate elements such as traffic monitoring, public transportation, utility distribution, health service management, leisure and tourism, entertainment, e-government, emergency response and commerce. Studies define these services as needing to be fully integrated within a holistic system either partly or fully accessible by the general public (Chong et al 2018;Keegan et al 2012).…”

“…Keegan et al (2012) proposed that a city will be an effective functioning entity when it integrates disparate elements such as traffic monitoring, public transportation, utility distribution, health service management, leisure and tourism, entertainment, e-government, emergency response and commerce. Studies define these services as needing to be fully integrated within a holistic system either partly or fully accessible by the general public (Chong et al 2018;Keegan et al 2012). Schuurman et al (2012) focused on technology and citizens in the context of collaborative digital environments and how these factors can facilitate the development of innovative applications with an emphasis on human capital rather than an expectation that digitalization alone can transform cities.…”

“…Just two studies from the literature review are focused on the smart economy. These were published during the period 2012-2014 and have more specifically addressed issues relating to smart business (Johnson et al 2014) and mcommerce (Keegan et al, 2012).…”

“…The literature references the concepts of smart economy, smart business and m-commerce within smart cities (Johnson et al 2014;Keegan et al 2012). The predictive, probabilistic architecture modelling framework presented by Johnson et al (2014) proposed a risk based approach to managing changing market conditions within ebusiness in a smart cities context.…”