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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the development of the grocery retail market in China. International retailers have been in China for more than ten years, during which period a series of profound changes has occurred in the Chinese retail sector. International retailers introduced advanced retail techniques and managerial approaches; domestic retailers grew more sophisticated in their supply chain management. Foreign‐based retailers in China can compete in hypermarket and supercentre formats because they offer higher‐quality products and achieve larger economies of scale. Domestic retailers compete by operating smaller formats and maintaining good relationships with governments and local communities. However, formerly state‐owned domestic retailers appear less competitive because they lack funds and adopt poor management styles. This study aims to make recommendations about future developments by domestic and foreign grocery retailers.

The paper takes the form of a qualitative study involving in‐depth interviews with four retailers: Wal‐Mart, Bonjour, Wu‐Mart, and Jingkelong.

The findings pertain to several different themes, including consumers, business relationships and distribution centres, product lines, store formats, quality systems, and competition.

The study's findings are based only on four retailers.

The paper presents a series of recommendations for both foreign‐based and domestic retailers.

This research is among the first to investigate operator attitudes toward competition in the grocery retail market in China.

This paper aims to examine the important factors that influence foreign retailers' expansion in China. By doing so the paper proposes business strategies for foreign retailers to be successful in China and other emerging economies.

A case study approach is employed to build theory. Five case studies were chosen, including the world's four largest retail firms: Wal‐Mart, Carrefour, Metro and Tesco, as well as the Japanese department store Heivado.

The paper identifies six important activities in successful retail expansion: adaptation to the external environment; responses to psychic distance; establishment of business networking; localization; entry strategies into new areas; and the role of local management team. A new framework articulates the interdependent relationships between various factors embedded in retail internationalization, including external environment, internal drivers, psychic distance, and expansion strategies.

The findings provide directions to managers of international retail firms on how to expand successfully in an emerging market.

This paper offers an exploratory framework on post‐entry expansion, which provides an indispensable link between previous research on pre‐entry and entry stages of retailer expansion and future research on foreign retailers' performance.

The paper aims to investigate the new market entry strategy of the international grocery retailers Aldi Süd and Costco in China; analyzing if and how their prior-online market entry reflects a strategic response to organizational challenges in the Chinese market, which is a pioneer in the use of digital technologies and the provision of digital services.

The article identifies major challenges faced by international grocery retailers in China and discusses these with the help of the conceptual approach of embeddedness. The paper is based on expert interviews with senior executives of the two international retailers and other retail specialists and consultants.

The prior-online market entry by Aldi Süd and Costco represents a strategic response to organizational challenges that have to be faced in an increasingly challenging and highly digitalized Chinese market. Prior-online market entry allows the two retailers to experiment with the unique and heterogeneous Chinese market and build network and territorial embeddedness to facilitate the establishment of the physical store network. Both retailers utilize online stores to build relation and network with suppliers and customers and to understand Chinese consumer preferences. Yet, the localization strategy of Aldi Süd and Costco vary greatly.

Grocery retailers' prior-online expansion strategy has not yet been the focus of academic research. In regard to global grocery retailers, such as Aldi Süd and Costco, previous research argued that they were prepared to accept a lower expansion speed in order to expand at minimum risk and cost and mainly in countries which are regarded as having higher cultural proximity. The paper reveals the potential of the prior-online market entry strategy to change the internationalization behavior of grocery retailers. In addition, it contributes to the understanding of the evolution of market entry strategy into advanced digital economies in the coming new decade.

From an international retailing perspective, this empirical study aims to examine luxury fashion retailers' changing marketing strategies in China.

Using case studies of 14 luxury fashion retailers, qualitative data were collected via 31 semi-structured executive interviews.

Both standardised global and localised multinational marketing strategies were found to have initially been employed by luxury fashion retailers entering into China. Subsequently, localised multinational strategies became increasingly important for their post-entry operations and business development, particularly in terms of their product strategies. More specifically, as well as the introduction of Chinese brand names, product design has been adapted according to Chinese market conditions, and product portfolios have been adapted to satisfy regional differences. However, localised product sourcing in China is far less common.

As the findings are generated from China, they may not explain luxury fashion retailers' marketing strategies in other markets. Despite the relatively small sample size, the 14 luxury fashion retailer case studies originate from across a wide range of countries, retail formats and ownership structures and are therefore considered to be varied enough to represent the market.

The study offers practitioners insights into the success that can be generated by the manipulation of marketing strategies, particularly product strategies, within the world's second biggest luxury market.

This paper extends the current international retailing literature by examining and comparing the motives and practices of luxury fashion retailers and the increasing localisation of their marketing strategies in China as they move from initial market entry into their post-entry operations.

The purpose of this paper is to critically investigate the competitive situation in China's retail sector after its three‐year transition period upon accession to the WTO. Based on this suggestions for domestic retailers’ development strategies are made.

The landscape of China's retail sector is given first in the paper. A critical review of variations of regional markets following the models adopted by Swanson and Cui and Liu is carried out. A focus group discussion is conducted. Analysis of the focus group discussion highlights the strategic issues of retail development and expansion.

Synthesis of recent studies on China's retail market and results generated from the focus group indicate that the development patterns in the regional markets could vary. Domestic and international retailers enjoy different advantages and face different challenges in their expansion. Issues concerning learning, infrastructure development, government policy and business culture are addressed.

This research provides a holistic view of China's retail market and its evolution after it became totally open to foreign investment at the end of 2004.

The synthesis of current studies and discussion of focus group data provide domestic retailers with a “mindscape” of the evolving market they are operating in. This mindscape enables Chinese retailers to articulate mid‐to‐long term strategies in their expansion and respond to the dynamic market situation effectively.

This study provides a snapshot of China's retail sector at a critical transitional stage. The discussion serves as a starting point to conceptualise the development patterns of an important emerging market.

The purpose of this paper is to examine internationalising luxury fashion retailers’ entry and post-entry expansion strategies in mainland China.

The study adopts a pragmatic mixed-methods research approach, including a quantitative mail survey and qualitative face-to-face in-depth executive interviews.

Different from initial single entry methods, multiple methods are increasingly popular for luxury fashion retailers’ post-entry expansion in mainland China. Although directly controlled expansion strategies have become significant, local partnerships are still important and omnichannel distribution strategies are rapidly growing.

The findings were generated in mainland China only.

This work provides an understanding of luxury fashion retailers’ activities in the Chinese market from both macro and micro perspectives. It examines luxury fashion retailers’ initial entry strategies, as well as their post-entry expansion strategies in mainland China. Few studies in the area of international luxury fashion retailing have employed a mixed-methods approach with this number of participants.

The purpose of this paper is to examine luxury fashion retailers’ ownership structures at their internationalisation strategies in Hong Kong and mainland China.

This study adopts a pragmatic mixed methods approach, comprising a quantitative mail survey and ten qualitative executive interviews.

This study found that group-owned luxury fashion retailers usually encounter fewer difficulties when internationalising into mainland China than their individually owned counterparts because of parenting advantage, particularly functional and service support. However, the success of some individually owned brands has demonstrated that branding strategies, management culture, international experience, financial power and local partners’ know-how are as important as parent company support and although the luxury market in mainland China has become developed, many foreign luxury fashion retailers still enter Hong Kong prior to mainland China. However, in relation to post-entry management and expansion strategies, the importance of Hong Kong has weakened because the emergence of capital cities, the growth of the middle class and fewer political restrictions.

The research findings are generated in the context of Hong Kong and mainland China, they are therefore limited in explaining luxury fashion retailers’ internationalisation strategies in other markets. Despite the challenge of the sample size, 63 out of 130 survey respondents (48.5 per cent response rate) and ten interview participants are felt to be sufficient to represent the market.

This research can be used by practitioners when assessing appropriate entry strategies to the Chinese luxury fashion market.

This is a pioneering study of the Chinese luxury market from the perspective of international retail strategies. It differentiates between Greater China (including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) and mainland China, and examines the impact of luxury fashion retailers’ ownership structures on their internationalisation strategies.

This empirical study aims to examine luxury fashion retailers' localised multiple channel distribution strategies in China.

Through case studies of 15 participating retailers, qualitative data were collected from 33 semi-structured interviews.

Strong impacts of internationalisation strategies, distribution strategies and channel length towards multiple channel retailing are revealed. Multi-channel retailing is widely employed by firms who have entered China and further developed their businesses through local partnerships and adopted a selective distribution strategy via relatively longer channels. Omni-channel retailing is only suitable for the few retailers using an exclusive distribution strategy through direct marketing and wholly owned customer relationship management. As a dynamic transformation from multi- to omni-channel retailing, cross-channel retailing is adopted by those who are withdrawing from local partnerships and shifting to wholly owned expansions and operations in host markets.

The results are potentially challenged by relatively small sample size.

Practitioners are suggested to adapt multiple channel retailing to their international expansion strategies, distribution strategies and channel length in the host markets.

This paper contributes to the literature in both multiple channel retailing and international retailing by offering insights into the motives, development patterns and suitability of multiple channel retailing in the international retail marketing context.

This empirical study, from the international retailing perspective, examines the direction of retailers' further expansion after initial entry into overseas host market in the context of the luxury fashion retail market in China.

The research adopts qualitative multiple case studies.

After initial entry into China, luxury fashion retailers further expand their retail operations through three directional patterns: cautious, regional and countrywide expansions. The stepwise expansion from tier-1 to tier-2 and tier-3 cities remains popular; however, the importance of the tier system of Chinese cities has been weakened because tier-3 cities in affluent regions are perceived to have more potential than some tier-2 cities in less developed regions. The retailers assess a potential local market through interrelated criteria, including location and strategic importance, economic development, available store locations and staff, a high degree of urbanisation and tourism, debatable favourable policies and offers, and popularity of e- and m-commerce. There is a positive relationship between popularity of e- and m-commerce in a city and the potential of that city to run brick-and-mortar stores.

The paper offers an insight into the current international retailing literature by examining the direction of luxury fashion retailers' further expansion after their initial market entry. Particularly, the research considers a set of criteria which can be used to assess a potential local market, and the impact of e- and m-commerce on local market choices for brick-and-mortar stores.

Seeks to summarize relevant literature reporting on western research and to use a grounded theory approach to form the model. Also to develop a Chinese retailer new product decision process model. And consider unique aspects of Chinese culture and the ongoing economic transitions.

Foreign producers have little knowledge about the internal operations of China's chain stores. As China's markets open to the world, an understanding of the ways in which retailers and suppliers interact in China – especially the ways in which they make product selection decisions – will be crucial to companies expanding into this area of the world.

Results are presented from in‐depth interviews with retail food buyers in China. Interviews were conducted during 1999‐2000 in Shanghai and Beijing. The interview data are used to develop a model of buyer‐seller relationships that lends itself to a better understanding of the complexities – cultural and market‐related – of retailer‐supplier relationships in China.

Since, China is a vast country this study forms a small part of the process in understanding its buyer‐seller interactions.

The literature, including grounded theory and the research undertaken with the sample of respondents highlight the potential gains from understanding the nature of Guanxi and the culture of China. Managerial implications are discussed.

The study investigated buyer‐seller relationships within the Chinese market. When Chinese food retailers make decisions on new product acceptance, their criteria are similar to those of food retailers reported in research focused on western society. Supplier role performance, price, trade assistance, and relationship with supplier are primary considerations; these criteria support results from western literature.