Accepted 2026 August 31 ; Published 2026 August 31

Journal of Computer Technology and Applied Mathematics, 2026, 3(4), 3007-4126.

View PDFDownload PDFArchive (OJS)

The rapid growth of platform-based retail and social commerce has enabled maternal and infant e-commerce businesses to achieve market visibility through hero-product strategies. However, reliance on a limited number of high-performing products may increase product concentration and expose businesses to sales volatility, returns, cancellations, and other operational risks. This study develops a conceptual framework linking hero-product dependence, digital operational innovation, risk governance, and sustainable brand building, and provides an exploratory empirical analysis using public transaction data. We extracted a maternal- and infant-related subsample of 23,622 transaction lines and 94 product codes from the UCI Online Retail II dataset and aggregated it into 25 monthly observations. We measured hero-product dependence as the monthly revenue share of the highest-selling product, while product concentration, return and cancellation value rate, and rolling sales volatility were measured using the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index and transaction-based indicators. We used descriptive statistics, Spearman correlation analysis, and quadratic regressions with HC3 robust standard errors. The results show that hero-product revenue share is strongly associated with overall product concentration and negatively associated with monthly purchase sales. However, within the observed hero-product share range of 6.7% to 18.6%, we find no statistically significant nonlinear relationship with return and cancellation risk or sales volatility. These findings suggest that hero-product success does not automatically generate operational risk; such risk may become more pronounced when product concentration is extreme and is not supported by portfolio development and effective risk governance.

Maternal and Infant E-commerce , Hero-product Strategy , Brand Building , Operational Innovation , Risk Governance , Digital Transformation , Brand Sustainability .

APA Style

Mo, L. (2026). Data-driven analysis of hero-product dependence, operational risk, and sustainable brand growth in maternal and infant e-commerce. Journal of Computer Technology and Applied Mathematics, 3(4), 10-17. https://doi.org/10.70393/6a6374616d.343335

Not Applicable.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.