Search results

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Received wisdom is that retail change starts in America and later spreads to major western European countries. This was certainly true until the early 1970s when France took the lead in innovation, blinding the retail world with its dazzling regional shopping centres and its massive hypermarkets. To this day the Americans have not succeeded in selling food and non‐food under the same roof with the same panache as the French. But in recent years the Americans have revived their capacity for innovation, especially in the development of speciality chains, some of them sharply focussed in marketing terms and closely supported by the latest in automated systems. Then again, in supermarkets there has been the development of different formats within specific store type categories, of which the food‐drug combination store and the “hybrid” warehouse store are two interesting examples. Lastly there have been significant technological developments in cable TV and viewdata systems, and a number of test teleshopping systems are already in operation. In this first of an irregular series of articles on American retailing, Dr David Rogers outlines these changes, some of which will be discussed in more detail in subsequent features.

There seems little doubt that the north American supermarket scene is a great deal more colourful and varied than its equivalent in the UK. Acquisitions and mergers are proceeding apace, but more importantly, there is a great deal of diversification in format terms, with the emergence of “membership” warehouse stores, “traditional” warehouse stores, and even the “super” warehouse store — not to mention food‐drug combination stores. David Rogers asserts that in spite of the differences in format, there are considerable similarities in grocery industry trends in North America and the UK, and there is much that we can learn from them.

In this third in a series of “columns” on various aspects of American retailing, David Rogers looks at supermarkets, discount office supplies, customer service and consumer electronics, amongst other things. David Rogers was one of the speakers at the Food Marketing Institute's Annual Convention in Chicago in May; he gave a presentation on niche marketing.

This third in David Rogers' series of articles on the applications of research to various aspects of retailing looks at one of the most crucial of retail functions — merchandising. With new and spectacular examples of good merchandising springing up all around us, retailers need all the help they can get in launching new ideas. David Rogers here looks at a “battery” of market research tools which can assist retailers to merchandise their stores more sensitively and profitably. This article is based on a paper given at the RMDP conference on “New Directions in Merchandising” held recently in London (RDM, July/ August 1985).

Controversy and well‐argued differences of opinion are the hallmarks of a successful conference, and these were certainly evident at RMDP's second conference on “Techniques for Shop Location”, held in London in June. Attended by nearly 200 delegates, this one‐day event emphasised the practical application of increasingly sophisticated locational techniques, especially those “friendly” to personal computers. But debating points quickly arose. Ross Davies, from the chair, argued that local authorities have become more supportive to superstore development, but this was questioned by Asda's David Gransby. The superstore developer thinks that retail use should be defined geographically; convenience shopping out of town allows the High Street to thrive on comparison stores. But planning economist Peter Jones thinks that some existing centres must be allowed to decline in favour of innovative developments elsewhere, such as combinations of superstores, warehouses and factories. David Powell, setting his arguments against a wide social and political background, took the view that the government should take positive steps to encourage retailers to locate in depressed regions and inner cities, thus creating change in current locational policies. But one delegate thought that government intervention would prove restrictive. Mike Poynor of the CDT, representing RDM at the conference, outlines the points of agreement and the differences.

America is still one of the most fertile of countries in terms of its creation of new retail formats. Many of these get exported to Europe — after all, it is to the States that we owe the concepts of self‐service, the discount store, and — more recently — “targetted” or “niche” retailing. Currently there are further interesting ideas on the boil in the States. David Rogers, a retail consultant who lives in America but has a British background, here writes the first of a series of occasional “columns” on some of these developments, and makes comments about possible parallels in the UK.

In this second feature on American developments, David Rogers looks at convenience stores, electronic retailing, department stores and children's clothing.

Acquisitions are becoming an increasingly important part of corporate strategy in the UK retail sector. In this, the second of a series on the applications of market research in retailing, David Rogers discusses the need for an organised approach to the evaluation of prospective acquisitions — and the part that market research should play in this process.

Even with all the work that has been going on in shop location over the past few years, too many retailers are still not sufficiently thorough and organised in their location procedures. In this feature David Rogers outlines a number of techniques available for estimating turnovers and evaluating new sites.