Managing Post-Festival Residual Inventory: A Sequential Gate Model of Exit Decision-Making among Small Independent Retailers in China
(2026) SMMP40 20261Department of Service Studies
- Abstract
- Post-festival residual inventory is a recurring challenge for small independent retailers, especially when products are tied to specific festivals, gifting occasions or seasonal selling windows. Existing research has examined markdown pricing, product deletion, and reverse logistics primarily in large retail chains or formal supply-chain systems, while paying less attention to how small independent retailers make inventory exit decisions under everyday constraints.
Based on 15 semi-structured interviews with small independent retailers in China, this thesis explores how retailers evaluate exit pathways for unsold post-festival goods and the criteria that shape their decisions. Drawing on bounded rationality and an adapted multi-criteria... (More) - Post-festival residual inventory is a recurring challenge for small independent retailers, especially when products are tied to specific festivals, gifting occasions or seasonal selling windows. Existing research has examined markdown pricing, product deletion, and reverse logistics primarily in large retail chains or formal supply-chain systems, while paying less attention to how small independent retailers make inventory exit decisions under everyday constraints.
Based on 15 semi-structured interviews with small independent retailers in China, this thesis explores how retailers evaluate exit pathways for unsold post-festival goods and the criteria that shape their decisions. Drawing on bounded rationality and an adapted multi-criteria disposition framework, the study uses abductive thematic analysis to examine decisions such as markdown, storage, supplier return or exchange, donation, transformation and disposal.
The findings show that retailers do not evaluate all pathways as equal alternatives. Instead, they narrow the feasible set through two sequential gates: product condition and storability, followed by future sales potential. Financial recovery then operates mainly as a break-even threshold, while supplier relationships and community or waste-related values shape which downstream pathways remain acceptable. The thesis also identifies occasion-value decay and front-end ordering as important mechanisms in managing post-festival inventory risk.
This study contributes to the literature on small retailer decision-making and inventory disposition by developing a sequential gate model for post-festival residual inventory management. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9233381
- author
- He, Jinghui LU and Ling, Yitian LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SMMP40 20261
- year
- 2026
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- post-festival residual inventory, small independent retailers, inventory exit, bounded rationality, disposition decision-making, occasion-value decay
- language
- English
- id
- 9233381
- date added to LUP
- 2026-06-08 16:39:38
- date last changed
- 2026-06-08 16:39:38
@misc{9233381,
abstract = {{Post-festival residual inventory is a recurring challenge for small independent retailers, especially when products are tied to specific festivals, gifting occasions or seasonal selling windows. Existing research has examined markdown pricing, product deletion, and reverse logistics primarily in large retail chains or formal supply-chain systems, while paying less attention to how small independent retailers make inventory exit decisions under everyday constraints.
Based on 15 semi-structured interviews with small independent retailers in China, this thesis explores how retailers evaluate exit pathways for unsold post-festival goods and the criteria that shape their decisions. Drawing on bounded rationality and an adapted multi-criteria disposition framework, the study uses abductive thematic analysis to examine decisions such as markdown, storage, supplier return or exchange, donation, transformation and disposal.
The findings show that retailers do not evaluate all pathways as equal alternatives. Instead, they narrow the feasible set through two sequential gates: product condition and storability, followed by future sales potential. Financial recovery then operates mainly as a break-even threshold, while supplier relationships and community or waste-related values shape which downstream pathways remain acceptable. The thesis also identifies occasion-value decay and front-end ordering as important mechanisms in managing post-festival inventory risk.
This study contributes to the literature on small retailer decision-making and inventory disposition by developing a sequential gate model for post-festival residual inventory management.}},
author = {{He, Jinghui and Ling, Yitian}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Managing Post-Festival Residual Inventory: A Sequential Gate Model of Exit Decision-Making among Small Independent Retailers in China}},
year = {{2026}},
}