Managing the nanostore supply chain: Base-of-the-pyramid retail in emerging markets

This dissertation examines nanostore supply chains in emerging markets, focusing specifically on the financial, material, and information flows therein. Chapter 2 investigates the impact for suppliers of allowing short-term order payment delays from shopkeepers. Suppliers are found to realize important operational benefits despite the associated risk. Chapter 3 explores the conundrum of digitization for nanostore shopkeepers. While shopkeepers realize that digitization might lead to important operational benefits, they fear that digital technologies might expose tax evasion, which acts as a significant barrier to adoption. Chapter 4 analyzes the competition between nanostores and convenience stores in the presence of a strategic, supplier-led initiative to provide value-added digital services in the nanostore channel. Such services benefit adopting nanostores and the supplier, by creating increased revenue from both the services themselves as well as the products offered by the supplier. Lastly, Chapter 5 delves into one strategic decision that nanostore suppliers face: how often to visit each nanostore. Specifically, suppliers’ visit frequency impacts shopkeepers’ ordering behavior, by interacting with shopkeepers’ cash constraints and suppliers’ product margins. Overall, this dissertation offers empirical insights and recommendations to enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of the nanostore retail channel in emerging markets – the source of livelihood for millions of shopkeepers and of basic goods for billions of consumers.