Sustainable Retailing and Marketing

Dear Colleagues,

Many companies realise the need for more sustainable ways of creating and offering products and integrate such objectives in their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy. Consumers often realise the need for more responsible consumption and behaviour, too. However, changing consumption patterns and behaviour is a huge challenge. Purchasing hedonic, unhealthy, pre-processed food is often seen as preferable because it offers a lot more pleasure, whereas sustainable products seem much less attractive (e.g., less tasty, less convenient) by comparison. What marketing tactics, then, could improve customers’ expectation of sustainable products’ consumption experience?

This Special Issue call invites researchers to submit studies that deal with marketing strategies and tactics of firms that encourage sustainable consumer behaviour. We are interested in research investigating marketing interventions that trigger long-term behavioural changes towards more sustainability. We especially welcome articles that provide insights into habit formation in the context of sustainable consumption. This call for papers targets researchers who study behaviour as well as factors that favour long-term behavioural changes towards more ecological behaviour, such as, for instance, social influence, emotions or knowledge. We encourage research that leverages customer contributions to more sustainability, e.g., what makes customers compensate for their CO₂ footprint when purchasing? What product categories are most suitable for compensation requests? What consumer characteristics predict sensitivity towards ecological targeting? What framing techniques favour sustainable purchase behaviour? What is in it for the retailer? 

The objective for this Special Issue is to publish papers that investigate retailer strategies and tactics that aim for more sustainability. Marketing interventions are often integrated in specific APPs or retailer APPs. How should APPs be designed, though, to enable consumers to consume in a more ecological way, to reduce food waste or, e.g., their CO₂ footprint? We are also interested in studies that investigate how firms can build and maintain a sustainable brand image: which brand characteristics, for instance, protect most against consumer and competitor brand attacks? 

How should grocery retailers react to trending demands for sustainable foods? At what pace should they adapt, for instance, their vegan assortment? How can they support consumers’ sustainable consumption decisions via product packaging information such as labels? How do labels or ingredient information affect shoppers’ health and sustainability predictions? It also seems important to better understand the role of food waste avoidance strategies for retailers’ differentiation and/or CRM strategies. How can retailers support their customers in avoiding food waste?

We encourage researchers as well as industrial professionals from all over the world to present their current insights in this Special Issue entitled “Sustainable Retailing and Marketing”.

Main Topics:

• Effective marketing interventions for sustainability (e.g., for reducing product returns, food waste, purchases with high CO₂ footprint, etc.)
• Marketing mix for sustainability: How do marketing mix strategies influence sustainability?
• APP design for digital sustainability interventions
• How can one build and maintain a sustainable brand image? Which brand characteristics protect most against brand attacks, and which create strong customer relationships?
• Long-term behavioural change for sustainability: what factors drive long-term behavioural change, and what strategies are effective?
• Supply strategies for trending demand for sustainable foods: at what pace should retailers adapt their vegan assortment?
• Product package: what are shoppers’ health and sustainability predictions when they face label and ingredients information?
• What characterises effective social network and influencer marketing for sustainable consumption?
• Factors and drivers influencing consumers’ and/or retailers’ willingness to reduce food waste
• Customer contribution: What makes customers compensate for their CO₂ footprint when purchasing? What product categories are most suitable for compensation requests, and what are promising target group characteristics? What framing techniques favor sustainable purchase behaviour? What is in it for the retailer?
• What is the role of sustainability and food waste management for retailers’ differentiation and/or CRM strategies?
• Hedonic food consumption: tactics to improve customers’ expectation of sustainable products’ consumption experience
• Communication and storytelling: What characteristics of “storytelling” activate customers’ need for sustainable products? Which values should marketing stories address to make sustainable products more appealing?
• Marketing metrics for managing sustainability and improving interventions: how can important outcome metrics such as “food waste”, “CO₂ footprint” and others be best measured and predicted continuously at the retailer and at the household level?

The Special Issue is aimed at publishing empirical papers from a broad variety of disciplinary backgrounds.

All the best,

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainable consumer behavior
• sustainable retail marketing
• ecological marketing