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Discount retailing in the UK has taken on a higher profile over recent years owing to the effects of the recession. Interest has largely centred on the growth of discount grocery retailing and the potential emergence of US‐style warehouse clubs. Nine discount clothing retailers currently present in “conventional” retail environments were studied. Examines in particular the nature of discounting and the business practices employed by those discount retailers. Suggests that discount clothing retailing in the UK is characterized by: both core business discounters and clearance outlets; a high degree of planned purchasing as a result of own‐label activity, information technology and relationships with manufacturers; importance of image and service in attracting customers.

Illustrates the reasons that have determined the success or failure of the discount retailers on the international scene, through the identification and analysis of the strategic groups, competitive advantages, entry barriers to the sector and barriers to mobility between the groups. Three strategic groups of discount food retailers that have adopted different internationalisation strategies have been defined and a series of key success factors of the different strategic groups has been identified. The winners in the race to international expansion are in particular the leaders of the first group of German hard discount retailers. But important niches in several foreign markets can also enable growth of retailers in the second group, the German soft discount retailers specialised abroad, and of the third group, the French soft discount retailers diversified abroad.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how customers’ self-control affects their purchase decisions and to discuss the pricing decisions of the retailer under different forms of contract.

The authors use the literature on hyperbolic discounting to model customers’ self-control problems. In this framework, the authors examine how the customers’ self-control affects the optimal pricing decision and the selection of the optimal contract form when there is a supplier and a retailer in the supply chain.

The study’s results show that when wholesale price contract is compared with buyback contract, buyback contract is better when customers’ self-control is weak; when quantity-discount contract is compared with wholesale price contract and buyback contract, although quantity discount can encourage customers to purchase more units of products, but both wholesale price contract and buyback contract can be better than quantity-discount contract in some cases. Additionally, the authors demonstrate that revenue sharing contract can increase the supply chain’s profit. The authors also find that sometimes customers’ preplan will lead to the result that the supplier produces more unhealthy products.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to analyze the decision-making of the retailer by developing an analytical framework combining customer’s self-control and supply chain contract. These results have important implications for the supplier and the retailer that sell vice goods.

The authors investigate the manufacturer's choice of discount schemes in a supply chain with competing retailers.

Using a game-theoretic model, the authors build two discount frameworks and compare and analyze the effects of different discount schemes on the performance of supply chain members.

The authors find that the retail price (market demand) in the quantity discount scheme is always higher (lower) than that in the market share discount scheme. The authors also find that the retailers' preference for discount schemes is antithetical to the manufacturer's preference in most cases. However, under certain conditions, there will be a win-win situation where Pareto-optimization occurs between the manufacturer and retailers when they choose the same discount scheme.

On the one hand, the authors assume that the two retailers are symmetrical in market size and operation efficiency. It would be interesting to study the effect of different discount schemes on retailers when the retailers have different market sizes or operating efficiency. On the other hand, the authors study the manufacturer's choice of discount schemes in a supply chain with one common manufacturer and two competing retailers. However, in practice, there exist other supply chain structures. Future research can examine the problem of choices of discount schemes in other different supply chain structures.

This paper help retailers and manufacturers to choose the best discount schemes.

This paper suggests that a high discount scale is not always beneficial (detrimental) to retailers (the manufacture).

The authors build two discount schemes (the quantity and the market share) in a supply chain consisting of one manufacturer and two retailers, and the authors focus on the effects of different discount schemes on the competition between two retailers. By comparing the two discount schemes, the authors study which discount scheme is the better choice for the manufacturer when facing competing retailers.

This paper aims to study the impact of existence and lack of discount on the relationships between one manufacturer and one retailer under the cooperative and the non-cooperative games and the members’ profits are compared.

In the first approach, the manufacturer’s price function is constant, and in the second approach, this price function is a decreasing function with respect to lot size. These approaches are modeled through three games structure, including two Stackelberg games and one cooperative game.

Some numerical instances comprising sensitivity analysis are provided, and then the members’ profits in different scenarios are compared. This paper reveals that in the presented models, whether the members are inclined to change their profits.

This paper presents a tool of decision-making for the type of relationships of members in two different circumstances, and an approach is also presented to maximize the members’ profit.

In this paper, the relationships between one manufacturer and one retailer are studied under six different circumstances, where pricing, cooperative advertising and inventory cost are considered simultaneously. Also, a different model is presented to make a balance in individual profits and gain more profit for each member compared to the cooperative and non-cooperative game.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the responses of women college students to discount stores and category killers in terms of the importance of seven‐store characteristics as well as their expectations for these attributes. Another purpose was to determine differences, if any, between these two store formats. Further the moderating variables of shopping frequency and orientation were introduced to determine if they influenced the results.

Personal interviews were used to collect data from a random sample of women college students from one university through the administration of a structured survey instrument. Statistical analyses were employed to generate the results.

Differences were found in the respondents' perceptions for both importance and expectations for six of the seven‐store attributes. For one characteristic, continuity of supply, no differences emerged and this characteristic was deemed important for both store formats. Moderating variables did not alter the results.

Given the limited nature of the sample, there is a need for replication of this research in other geographic regions, including international sites in order to corroborate these findings. Also, replication with men is needed.

This study provides guidance to both discount store and category killer executives on the types of strategies and tactics needed to better attract and retain women college students.

Attention was directed to women college students, a highly desired but often neglected market segment. Further, continuity of supply, an attribute not often indicated in most retailing texts emerged as very important and highly expected by respondents.

The exponential growth of organised retail has led to competition among mall retailers with the use of promotions to increase traffic to the stores. The footfall in the malls is dependent on the sales generated by various retail stores located in the malls. The current research analyses the role of promotions used by the retailers located in Indian malls in improving consumers’ commitment towards the mall. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of culture, personality traits like value consciousness, price consciousness and coupon proneness, and promotions used by retailers in malls on consumers’ commitment towards the malls.

Eight malls from six cities were selected by popularity and footfall. Mall-intercept technique along with systematic sampling was used to collect data from 453 mall shoppers using a self-administered questionnaire. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

Retailer promotions were categorised under discounts, promotional offers and loyalty cards. The findings suggest that cultural values of long-term orientation and masculinity have an impact on consumers’ perceptions towards discounts, promotional offers and loyalty programmes. Different promotional strategies had varied responses from consumers.

Mall retailers can use the findings to design promotions according to the cultural values of masculinity and long-term orientation. Loyalty programmes can symbolise status and long-term relationship with retailer. Commitment towards retailers and consequently malls could be enhanced through discounts and promotional offers. Different promotional strategies can be used to target price-conscious consumers and increase footfall in the stores. The linkages between cultural dimensions and promotional techniques would be helpful in targeting different consumer groups by designing promotions which are in line with cultural values.

The research extends the existing literature on mall retailing by analysing the importance of cultural dimensions on sales promotions strategies used by retailers in malls. The study establishes that perceptions towards retailer promotions differ across cultures. Different promotions offered by retailers generate varied response from consumers across different cultures which would influence their commitment towards malls.

The current research aims to explore influence of shopping motives and price perceptions on Indian consumers' attitude towards mall retailer promotions. Effect of price discounts, gifts, coupons, and rebates offered by mall retailers to attract store traffic were examined.

Data were collected through mall intercept technique in six cities across India. Convenience sampling method was used to target metropolitan and non-metropolitan cities for data collection.

Results suggest that consumers' attitude towards mall retailers' promotional strategies is influenced by shopping values and price consciousness, deal proneness, and coupon proneness. Age, education, and income influence consumers' attitude towards promotions.

Only three constructs of price perception scale were used for the research. Future research can include all the items of price perception scale to understand its applicability on Indian sample. Promotions offered by branded and non-branded retailers in malls were not examined.

The findings can be useful to mall retailers for designing promotions to increase footfalls and sales. Promotions can be used by retailers to convey value and attract price conscious consumers. Retailers need to match their promotional offers according to price sensitivity and shopping motives of consumers.

There is limited research to examine role of promotions used by mall retailers in attracting footfalls in Indian malls. The influence of price perceptions and shopping motives on promotions offered by retailers in Indian malls has not been examined.

Seeks to effect a comparison of the pricing strategies followed by hypermarkets, compared with those that discount stores carry out.

Data were collected from the direct observation of the supermarket shelves of nine frequent purchase product categories in several hypermarkets and discount stores. Diverse statistical analyses were applied to these picked up data, such as mean comparisons, ANOVA and correspondence analysis.

The article concludes that the hypermarkets tend to have higher mean prices, and use promotional tools more profusely than the discount stores.

For future research, it would be very important to examine consumer price evaluations based on a theoretical approach in the same formats, and in this way consumer reactions to price changes could be understood. Also, examining the cross‐country differences in retail stores may be quite interesting.

Relationships between hypermarkets and hi‐lo pricing, plus discount stores and EDLP pricing, have been found. Therefore, retail managers of both formats have to know all about these pricing strategies. In this way, the managers of these firms would know the kind of customers that can be attracted and the signals and image that can be projected in the market.

This paper directly compares the pricing and promotional activities of hypermarkets versus discount stores. Researching into whether price and promotional differences exist between the two format retailers will help consumers and managers to know the true price level of each format.

The purpose of this paper is to better understand the unique competitive positioning characteristics of off-price retailers and how they compare to other types of retailers. The authors compare off-price and upscale off-price retailers with four major formats of retailers: first, discount department store/warehouse club retailers; second, moderate department store retailers; third, department store retailers; and finally, specialty department store retailers.

The paper employs a representative sample that was randomly drawn from four primary metropolitan cities in the USA. The data were collected using telephone interviews by a prominent, marketing research firm. A series of discriminant analyses were conducted to examine the data.

The findings of the paper indicate that the off-price formats were consistently positioned at extreme points along the price/value continuum, signifying the strongest value-orientation among the other retail formats. The authors also found that while the upscale off-price format followed the specialty department stores in terms of fashion. The results point to an important disadvantage of the off-price format – although strong on price/value, they often fall short on fashion and many other store attributes that may be important to luxury-oriented customers.

The paper employed a sample from several cities collected using a telephone interview methodology within the US. Due to these limitations, the findings of this paper may be hampered by this methodology and not generalize to regions outside of the US. Future research should examine how the demise of most of the upscale off-price retailers and growth of flash web sites have changed the competitive structure of retailing.

The results demonstrate that the positioning of the off-price retail format is unique from other formats. The retail formats occupy distinct positions. The off-price retail format is strongly associated with the price/value position but only moderately fashionable to customers, especially when compared with the department and specialty department store formats. In contrast, the upscale off-price format, while also strongly positioned along the price/value continuum, is considered much more fashionable than the off-price retail format. In fact, the upscale off-price retail format only trails the specialty department store format in terms of fashion.

The unique characteristics of the off-price retail format and growing interest from upscale department stores underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the motives of the off-price shopper. This paper provides retailers with a more complete understanding of the store attributes that differentiate the off-price retail format from other major retail store formats. The overall objective of this study is to offer a comprehensive view of the positioning of off-price retailers compared with many alternative retail formats.