Editorial Introduction: Innovations for smart and sustainable retailing

Abstract

This editorial introduces the special issue of The Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services titled “Innovations for Smart and Sustainable Retailing”, which explores the profound transformations in global retail driven by digital technologies and new commercial channels. The issue presents three selected papers that exemplify how innovations-ranging from AI-powered recommendations and mobile advertising strategies to data-driven service optimization-can enhance customer experiences, reshape competitive dynamics, and support sustainable growth. Chen et al. examine how post hoc explanations in AI-driven conversational recommendation systems influence consumer trust, with attention to decision-making styles and interface types. Park and Ryu explore how consumers' regulatory focus and shopping goals interact with processing fluency in interpreting ambiguous mobile discount claims. Kim et al. analyze over 110,000 Yelp reviews to evaluate the impact of hotel service attributes on customer satisfaction, challenging the assumptions of the traditional Kano model in hospitality contexts. Collectively, these studies offer new theoretical insights and practical implications for designing adaptive, personalized, and data-informed retail strategies. The special issue underscores the critical role of technology and consumer psychology in driving smart and sustainable retailing in an increasingly digital marketplace.