The concept of minimum display quantity (MDQ) is unavoidable in brick-and-mortar retailing format owing to which, retailers need to ensure a minimum level of inventory displayed at each store irrespective of the revenue or inventory turns generated by a particular store. It is observed that majority of bricks-and-mortar retailers in India assume;(a) existing inventory management system is ideal to their store, (b) software solutions record accurate inventory movement, (c) involving store management team in inventory related decision making is risky/biased and most importantly (d) loss of sale due to stockouts is inevitable. Such assumptions and widely followed practice have created a predisposition and mindset in store managers and they believe that their store delivers revenue and profit to the best of its potential with the inventory which is made available to them through existing inventory management system and we cannot avoid a number of instances consumers are unsatisfied due to stockout situations. In this research, we have analysed the existing decision-making process and control systems related to inventory management of a select retailer, attempted to design a new framework and applied the same through an experiment to evaluate the change in (a) overall store profitability and (b) inventory related key performance indicators.

Majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India assume that; (a) stores in locations where there is higher consumer walk-ins/traffic generate higher revenue and profit, (b) consumers spend is higher in premium locations, (c) it is easier to attract consumers if the store is located in malls, (d) stores in premium locations helps in building premium perceptions about the retail brand in consumers and competitors mind, (e) it is difficult to attract and acquire consumers for high street stores, (f) institutional stores are not long-term and most importantly, (g) magnitude of revenue that would be generated by a store is important while considering a location. Such assumptions and misconceptions have resulted in increasing challenges with respect to maintaining consistent growth and sustainable store profits. Brick-and-mortar retailers need to understand the importance of store location in relation to retailer’s overall brand image, target consumer group and its implications on the overall store profitability and consumer perceptions rather applying standard thumb rules, assumptions and misconceptions followed by competitors or even short-term lucrative deals offered by site owners/managers. In this research, we have analysed twelve months actual sales data across high street stores, mall stores and institutional stores of a select retailer and drawn insights to recommend brick-and-mortar retailers the right strategy of store locations choice and store locations mix to gain long-term strategic and competitive advantage.

Since the time online retailing format started getting consumer acceptance in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at Brick-and-mortar store has changed. This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of Brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. From the existing literature we have found many discounting frameworks suggested by researchers, but they are all isolated for specific contexts and leave it to retailers to create their own discounting frameworks. In this work, we have attempted to create an integrated discounting framework for Indian brickand-mortar retailers by carrying out multiple experiments with different manipulations and under different contexts along with taking clues from past research findings, insights and suggestions along with testing validity and reliability of the proposed framework in the field.

Ever since the online retailing format has emerged in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at brick-and-mortar store has changed.This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. In this research which is based on recommendations of empirical research previously carried out on the impact of changes in retailer and consumer perspective towards discount post emergence of online stores in India, we have carried out multiple experiments on multiple long-term discounting frameworks to investigate and recommend brick-and-mortar retailers on ideal(a) frameworks, (b) duration, (c) types, (d) assortment coverage, and (e) advertising techniques for long-term discounting strategies to enable brick-and-mortar retailers to design appropriate sales promotions to gain a competitive advantage over online retailing on the discount component.

End-of-season sale (EOSS) has been one of the most important long duration sales promotion/discountingevents for brick-and-mortar retailers and consumers in India. But, ever since the online retailing format has emerged in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at brick-and-mortar store is expected to have changed.This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. In this research, authors have attempted to investigate; (a) proof, (b) pattern, (c) magnitude, (d) significance and (e) impact of this change in perspective towards discount across stakeholders and transpired the research outcomes into suggestions to enable brick-and-mortar retailers to design appropriate sales promotions.

A majority of organized brick-and-mortar lifestyle retailers in India believe that the brick-and-mortar retailing model ensures economies of scale as they keep opening new stores. Having more stores might help retailers to gain product sourcing advantages in addition to generating additional revenue to the firm but at the same time, it fails to provide any other benefits towards economies of scale as every new store comes with new one-time capital expenditures and recurring fixed expenses. Another misconception is that lifestyle retailing must follow an organizational structure (OS) that is adopted by their parent company and hence a majority of OS adopted by lifestyle retailers in India is dependent on organizational form. This study was not limited to just recommending a rational OS based on exploratory research and existing theories in the OS domain. Once the ROLS-b was designed, we have experimented with the proposed rational OS on one of the ten lifestyle retailers in the study to test the validity and reliability. Experimentation results empirically and qualitatively demonstrate that the existing belief of brick-and-mortar lifestyle retailers in India which assumes economies of scale and long-term firm’s sustainability as the retailer increases the store count is just a misconception and does not hold. On the other hand, when we experimented the ROLS-b for over twelve months at over 25 percent stores of a select retailer, results demonstrate that these stores which have gone through the treatment have shown 5.34 times improvement in the store-level profit and 1.97 times in the firm-level profit in addition to eliminating a majority of gaps found in the existing OS that was leading to diseconomies of scale and deteriorating firm’s performance.

Anti-BCMA chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy showed excellent efficacy in patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma (R/R MM). Point-of-care (POC) CAR manufacturing abrogates the need for cryopreservation and shipment of cells, thus shortening the manufacturing process and reducing the necessity of bridging therapy. We report outcomes of phase 1b/2 single-center clinical trial of autologous POC anti-BCMA CAR T-cell therapy in patients (pts) with R/R MM treated with ≥3 prior therapies (NCT05243212). Methods: Pts underwent a single peripheral blood leukapheresis. Fresh T-cells were transduced with retroviral vector encoding the anti-BCMA CAR (based on 11D5-3 ScFv, CD28 costimulatory domain, and CD3-ζ signaling domain). Cell dose was 6 � 10 6 /kg (dose level I [n = 3]) or 9 � 10 6 /kg (dose level II [n = 29]) CAR T-cells. Response was defined per IMWG criteria. Last follow-up was as of 02/2023. Results: All 32 pts (median age 60, IQR 54-67) enrolled received CAR T-cell infusion in a median of 11 days (IQR 11-11) after leukapheresis. Only 2 pts received bridging chemotherapy. The median number of prior therapies was 4 (IQR 3-5), with 59% and 34% of the pts being penta-and quad-refractory, respectively. 7 (22%) pts had prior exposure to BCMA-targeted therapy (belantamab mafodotin, n = 5 [16%]; talqeutamab, n = 2 [6%]). At enrollment, 10 (34%) pts had high-risk cytogenetics, 7 (22%) had double-hit myeloma, and 17 (57%) had extramedullary involvement. Only 17 (53%) and 2 (16%) pts were eligible to enroll in the KarMMa (NEJM, 2021) and CARTITUDE-1 (Lancet, 2021) studies, respectively.One patient (3%) developed grade 3 cytokine release syndrome. Immune effector cell-associated neurotoxicity syndrome was not noted.Grade 3-4 neutropenia and thrombocytopenia occurred in 31 (97%) and 16 (50%), respectively. Anemia requiring transfusion occurred in 14 (44%) pts. Cellular therapy-related death was not observed.The median follow-up was 3.9 months (IQR 2.6-7.3). Best Overall response rate (PR at least) was 59% (VGPR at least, 40%). Median time to first response was 31 days (95% CI: 26-33). Estimated 6months OS, PFS and duration of response were 89% (95% CI: 75-100), 48% (95% CI: 33-72), and 63% (95% CI: 41-97), respectively.Patients with prior exposure to BCMA-targeted therapies had an inferior PFS (HR 3.4 [95% CI: 1.2-9.7] p = 0.03; Figure 1). Conclusion: POC anti-BCMA CAR T-cells induced high response rateswith an excellent safety profile in high-risk MM patients mostly not eligible to be enrolled in the pivotal trials. The rapid CAR-T production time obviated the need for bridging therapy in most patients. It is noteworthy that prior exposure to BCMA-targeted therapies is associated with dismal PFS, hence those therapies should be carefully considered when CAR T-cell therapy might be intended.

Ever since the online retailing format has emerged in India, consumers now have wider options available for them to buy a product at a discounted price and notably, as online stores in India are following the product discounting as one of the key drivers for consumer acquisition, consumers’ perspective towards discount at brick-and-mortar store has changed. This change in consumers’ perspective has put the majority of brick-and-mortar retailers in India into a quandary and they are losing out their market share slowly to online retailers. In this research which is based on recommendations of empirical research previously carried out on the impact of changes in retailer and consumer perspective towards discount postemergence of online stores in India, we have carried out multiple experiments on multiple short-term discounting frameworks to investigate and recommend brick-and-mortar retailer son ideal (a) frameworks, (b) duration, (c) types, (d) assortment coverage, and (e) advertising techniques for short-term discounting strategies to enable brick-and-mortar retailers to design appropriate sales promotions to gain a competitive advantage over online retailing on the discount component.