Retail Marketing (2nd edition)

Citation

Pretious, M. (2003), "Retail Marketing (2nd edition)", International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 164-165. https://doi.org/10.1108/09590550310465585

The publication in 1990 of the first edition of Peter McGoldrick’s Retail Marketing was a significant landmark in marketing publishing in the UK. It was one of the first texts designed primarily for use in higher education that promoted the notion that marketing in a retail context merited consideration as a separate discipline. Other authors writing at around the same time (Collins, 1992; McDonald and Tideman, 1993) delineated the scope of the issues involved, or the process of developing a marketing plan, but McGoldrick’s approach was unique in combining academic theory with a comprehensive selection of quantitative and qualitative data garnered from retailers, consultancies and market research organisations. He placed marketing at the centre of all retail activity and in so doing developed a text that teachers involved in a wide variety of university sector retail courses could legitimately recommend to students as core reading material.

However, by the end of the 1990s the retail environment had altered significantly and Retail Marketing had become dated. The overall market structure, retailer approaches to marketing and branding and consumer attitudes had all changed, leading to much of the data cited by McGoldrick being inaccurate and making it difficult to continue to wholeheartedly recommend the book. In addition, new authors (Gilbert, 1999; Omar, 1999) had produced texts that competed directly with McGoldrick’s offering in terms of content, were better presented and which had the advantage of more recent statistical material. Thus in 2002, after numerous entreaties from retail academics, a revised edition of Retail Marketing was produced; up to date, massively expanded in terms of pagination and nearly twice as expensive as the original version. So, does the new McGoldrick meet the need of its potential users and merit the accolades that the first edition received?

The structure of the new text is, on close inspection, not totally dissimilar to the old, though the format and typography is much enhanced. McGoldrick first sets the scene in an introductory chapter that outlines the development of modern retailing and the marketing function, paying particular attention to the role of IT in decision making. Theories of retail change are also discussed in this section, usefully linking the reality of retailing to academic analysis. Part One of the book proper analyses retail marketing strategy and contains chapters on the competitive environment, consumer behaviour and the strategic planning process. The author devotes two chapters to the monitoring of retailer performance, a subject that is rarely given as much space in student‐orientated texts but which is clearly vital to practitioners.

Part Two of the book examines the retail marketing mix, bringing together the subjects of store location, product selection, own branding, pricing, promotional activity, the selling environment and retail service. One might argue that some topics deserve more coverage; the areas of distribution and logistics are under‐represented, in my view, though category management and ECR are tackled from the buying and store operations perspectives. A further criticism is that there is insufficient acknowledgement by McGoldrick that the loci of decision making for the marketing mix elements discussed are likely to be situated in different functional silos within a retailer and not necessarily regarded as central to the marketing department per se. For example, the practice of supply chain management may have more closely linked purchasing, inventory and in‐store merchandising, but a property division that is less integrated with managers involved in day‐to‐day retail operations may well determine store location strategy.

Part Three of the book is wholly new, comprising two chapters on international retailing and e‐tailing, written respectively by Professor Steve Burt of the University of Stirling’s Institute for Retail Studies and Jonathan Reynolds of the Oxford Institute of Retail Management. Both these topics are of immense importance to the future of retailing and in selecting two recognised experts in their fields to write on his behalf, McGoldrick adds considerably to the richness of his text as a resource.

Retail Marketing is extremely well referenced, pointing scholars towards more specialised texts and articles should they require more detailed information on particular subjects. Each chapter also contains a summary and review questions that are of great assistance as teaching aids. An online resource is available at www.mcgrawhill.co.uk/textbooks/mcgoldrick

Overall, the new edition of Retail Marketing is comprehensive in its coverage, well organised on its presentation and diligent in its use of research. It fully deserves to continue be recommended to any serious student of retailing and will undoubtedly be the first point of reference for many UK academics teaching across a wide variety of retail programmes.