Review of related literature

1. According to the study, the investigation examines the role that communication plays
in fostering trust and disclosure in electronic commerce exchanges. In particular, this
research explores how characteristics of online vendors and consumers interact with
Web site communications to affect consumer behavior online. The study relies on two
relatively recent models of electronic exchange, the Internet consumer trust model and
the electronic exchange model, to examine the effectiveness of certain trust and
assurance mechanisms (i.e., privacy policies and seals), as well as e-tailer reputation and
individuals' concern for privacy and data security, on trust and disclosure of personal
information to commercial Web sites. Results suggest that the vendor characteristic of
reputation is important in influencing e-tailer trust and that the content of privacy
assurances do not affect trust or disclosure. The findings have important implications for
both theoretical models of electronic exchange and for firms engaged in electronic
commerce.

Metzger, M. (2006). Effects of Site, Vendor and consumer characteristics on Web site
trust and disclosure. Communication Research. 33(3), 155-179


2. The author is right to emphasize that he is filling a void in the literature on the
informal sector by focusing on how street vendors have influenced state policy. Cross's
study answers three interrelated questions: How is it possible for street vendors,
generally regarded as politically marginal, to influence state action? Why is the state not
willing to enforce formal regulations and instead enters into negotiations over the
application of the law? Why has the informal sector continued to grow and what are the
possibilities for the future? Cross's methodology (which included conducting
ethnographic fieldwork among street vendors, administering a questionnaire,
interviewing government officials, and accompanying low-level government officials on
inspections) is especially suited for understanding the conflicts between formal state
policy and on-the- ground state action as well as the processes by which street vendors
negotiate for space and access to markets. This is an excellent book not only for the
richness of its analysis but also because of the questions it raises.

Cross, John C., Informal Politics: Street Vendors and the State in Mexico City. H-Urban,
H-Net Reviews. September, 2000.

3. Street vending is pervasive across the globe, especially in developing countries. It
provides an important source of earnings for the unemployed in urban areas, as well as
a source of relatively inexpensive goods and services for city residents. However, typical
street vendors face a common set of problems, which range from tenuous property
rights and harassment from civic authorities to subsistence living and earning. Under
this precarious setting, street enterprises have been expanding. The objective of this
article is to employ a systematic method to research the studies in this field, extract
their findings, and integrate them in order to propose a model that incorporates factors
affecting the success of street enterprises. Based on this model, major research issues
are outlined to advance the knowledge in the field.

Wongtada, N. (2013). Street Vending Phenomena: A Literature Review and Research
Agenda. Thunderbird International Business Review. 56(1), 55-75

4. Street vendors are an integral component of urban economies around the world.
Distributors of affordable goods and services, they provide consumers with convenient
and accessible retail options and form a vital part of the social and economic life of a
city. Street vending as an occupation has existed for hundreds of years (Bromley 2000)
and is considered a cornerstone of many cities historical and cultural heritage.

Bromley, R. (2000). Street Vending & Public Policy: A Global Review. International
Journal of Sociology and Social Policy. 20(1-2)


5. This study investigates the survival activities of street vendors as a way of fighting
poverty within households in the face of the current economic crisis that has dampened
the survival spirits of many poor households in Lesotho. It also examines government
intervention in street vending activities. The contributing factors to the present poverty
include, among others, the harsh weather that is unfavorable to agricultural production;
retrenchments in cloth and textile factories, as well as in the South African mines;
absence of a vibrant private sector; and the inability of the government to create much
needed jobs. Therefore, these factors have pushed many poor individuals into street
businesses to fend for their households as a strategy to fighting poverty. The study is
guided by a principal hypothesis that states that there is no significant number of street
vendors climbing out of poverty. The three districts selected for the study are Maseru,
Berea and Leribe. The specific study sites within these districts are Maseru, Hlotse,
Maputose and Tetateyaneng. Primary data has been collected from 556 respondents
through questionnaires, focus group discussions and interviews with officials of
municipal councils.

Tanga, P. INFORMAL SECTOR AND POVERTY: THE CASE OF STREET VENDORS IN
LESOTHO. OSSREA Publications.

6. There are various reasons why the often stated gap between policy formulation and
policy implementation is especially large in developing countries: ambiguous policy
goals, decision-making without considering the needs of those affected, low degree of
compliance and administrative capacity of implementing agencies. What is perhaps
most striking is the fact that interest aggregation generally occurs at the enforcement
stage only. This means that laws and regulations can be sapped and distorted along the
lines of the power constellations of the actors involved. The case study presented here
deals with the regulatory aspects of street vending in the particular cultural
environment of a South-East Asian capital, Manila. It is demonstrated that regulations
are more inspired by Western images of modernization largely removed from the harsh
socioeconomic realities of the sector.
Moreover, compliance is minimized by cultural values (conflict avoidance, respect of
power structures) governing the behavior of lower level administrative agents and
hawkers alike. The overall result is that regulations are purely symbolic and ineffective,
nevertheless maintaining a climate of harassment and extortion.
The paper advocates a more positive approach towards street-vendors combining
minimal regulation with measures of encouragement and public assistance.

Illy, H. (1986). Regulation and evasion: Street-vendors in Manila. Policy Sciences. 19(1),
61-81

7. The authors introduce the concept of consumer options and empirically validate it in
the context of event ticket pricing. They demonstrate that consumer options can protect
consumers from the downside related to uncertain outcomes and enhance seller profits
by enabling superior market segmentation and increasing consumer willingness to pay.
The authors examine the newly proposed ticket pricing mechanism in sports markets, in
which there is uncertainty about the teams that will play in a final event (e.g., the
National Collegiate Athletic Association Final Four basketball tournament). Fans who
want to attend the game after knowing which teams will play are often disappointed
because tickets typically sell out in advance. The authors propose that a fan can buy an
option on a ticket before this uncertainty is resolved. Later, he or she can decide
whether to exercise the option. The authors present a simple analytical model of
consumer options in this setting. Then, they empirically demonstrate that profits under
option pricing can exceed those from (1) advance selling and (2) pricing after
uncertainty is resolved. The analysis and findings of this article lay a foundation for
future work on consumer options in marketing.

Sainam, P. (2010). Consumer Options: Theory and an Empirical Application to a Sports
Market. Journal of Marketing Research, 47(3), 401-414

8. Casual observation suggests that firms use contrasting practices and procedures when
offering customized products to individual customers. Some firms take a hands-off
approach and let customers self-select their desired product. In contrast, other firms are
proactively involved in designing customized solutions to individual customer needs.
The authors call the former low vendor customization control and the latter high
vendor customization control. Despite the strategic importance of customization, no
research has shed light on the rationale for using these contrasting approaches to
customization and their normative consequences. The authors develop a conceptual
model that contends that the appropriate level of vendor control over the
customization decision is a function of technology and knowledge considerations. They
use data on 304 procurement arrangements for customized products to test their
hypotheses and to explore the normative ramifications for three key measures of
performance: closeness of the delivered product to customer needs, delivery
performance, and the vendor's operating profits. The results show that contracting
parties choose the level of vendor control over customization in a strategic and
discriminating way to enhance the benefits from customization for both parties. The
authors discuss implications for both theory and practice.

Ghosh, M. (2006). Customizing Complex Products: When Should the Vendor Take
Control?. Journal of Marketing Research. 43(4), 664-679

9. The thesis work points that consumer protection must be viewed in two perspectives:
the substantive rights granted under law and the availability of these rights. It is the
availment of these rights that determines the actual difference in the lives of
consumers. Availment requires awareness of the actual rights and the mechanisms for
redress. The current remedies available to consumers are geared towards the
settlement of disputes and the resolution of complaints in a swift and inexpensive
manner.
Lapus, M.R.O. (2000). Towards caveat vendor. Philippine Law Journal. 74(3), 590-632

10. The protagonists examine the buyer's problem of inducing the supplier's quality
effort using two arrangements: the appraisal regime and the certification regime. In the
appraisal regime, the buyer inspects the units supplied and either charges a penalty for
defective units identified during inspection or pays the unit price for good units. In the
certification regime, the supplier obtains vendor certification and the buyer pays the
unit price for all units supplied. The inspection technology and the certification process
provide noisy information on the supplier's quality effort. In the appraisal regime, the
buyer implements the supplier's high quality and low-inspection. The supplier's
expected profit is greater than his reservation profit because of an additional agency
cost: The buyer has to prevent the supplier from performing unwanted/preemptive
inspection (which gives rise to indirect costs from delay, etc.). This additional agency
cost arises precisely when the effectiveness of inspection is high. This provides a moral-
hazard-based rationale for the increasing use of certification (such as ISO 9000) in spite
of (in fact, because of) the increasing effectiveness of inspection. The potential for
additional agency cost incurred by the buyer in the appraisal regime highlights an
indirect cost associated with inspection.

Hwang, I. (2006). Vendor certification and appraisal. Management Science. 52(10),
1472-1482

11. This study has been focusing on the vulnerability of street vendors in Java since the
time when Java was hit severely by the economic crisis in 1997/1998, which also had
reversed the trend of economic formalization in Indonesia. For this aim, a survey was
conducted during the month of February 2007 in Yogyakarta and Sleman districts in
Yogyakarta Special Province. The survey covered 122 street vendors in several streets in
both areas. These samples consist of three groups of street vendors: food seller, non-
food seller, and services providers. Based on this survey, vulnerability index of street
vendors is measured. The study found that most of street vendors in Yogyakarta
experience vulnerability at the medium level. In general, vulnerability of food seller
vendors is higher than other vendors. Vulnerability also varies across the locations of
vending.

Brata A.G.(2008). Vulnerability of urban informal sector: Street vendors in Yogyakarta
Indonesia. MPRA Paper Number 12541.


12. This paper reports preliminary findings about how households organize street
vending businesses in response to varying sources and degrees of uncertainty. The
thesis is that households organize themselves in different ways in response to different
types of uncertainty associated with 1) earning different types of income and 2)
differences as well as changes in intrahousehold relationships. The important findings
are twofold: first, that household members earn income from both formal and
informal sources BOTH sequentially and simultaneously. The second finding is that
people coordinate the efforts of household members with respect to uncertainty to
keep income flowing from the incomeearning activities the members are practicing. I
review some empirical work on the informal economy and follow this discussion with
data from Chicago's Maxwell Street Market.
Morales A.(1997). Uncertainty and organization of street vending business. The
International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 17(3/4), 191212.
13. In developing states of Southeast Asia, street vendors play a significant but
frequently unappreciated role in both the vibrancy of public spaces as well as the
informal economy. Yet, they are subject to indiscriminate purges from sidewalks and
other contested territories, which they occupy for lack of provision of spaces in which
they could otherwise do business. But such occurrences, and the conflicts that may
follow, can be addressed by revisiting policies, which seem anti-vendor or which fail to
comprehend their presence and needs. This research studied street vendors of one of
the active commuter interchanges of Metro Manila, the Monumento Station area in
Calocan City, framing their needs, issues and aspirations against existing laws.
Simultaneously examined were typical uses of shifting, often-contested stretches of
roads, corners, and easements where hawkers, among other users, daily negotiate a
claim to the citys space.
Recio, R. (2013). Street Vendors, their Contested Spaces, and the Policy Environment: A
View from Calocan, Metro Manila. Environment and urbanization of Asia. 4(1), 173-190