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Focuses on the impact of supercenters on traditional food retailers in four markets, including two small cities (Victoria, Texas; Gainesville, Georgia) and two large cities (Columbus, Ohio; Omaha, Nebraska). Consumer surveys were conducted in order to assess the effects of the entry of Meijer, Wal‐Mart, Kmart, and Target supercenters. The results show supercenters can gain from 15 to 20 percent of primary shoppers and an even greater proportion of secondary shoppers. Furthermore, the supercenter primary shoppers, and especially those of Wal‐Mart and Meijer, identified low price and assortment more often as the reason for store choice. In comparison, traditional supermarket primary shoppers were less willing to trade off locational convenience or, in some cases, quality and assortment. Wal‐Mart is predicted to continue to rapidly gain share at the expense of competitors who do not differentiate themselves in some significant way.

Revisits the strategic resource management (SRM) model, a framework that was developed 20 years ago as a managerial tool for performance measurement and integrated decision making in retailing. Shows certain modifications to the SRM model, focusing on the gross and net margin return on retail space (i.e. GMROF and NMROF) as the key metrics. Authors contend the new focus gives the SRM framework a firmer grounding conceptually, and makes the SRM model more directional in practice. The paper also extends the SRM framework from its traditional gross margin metrics to net margin. Authors believe the greatest benefits of the SRM framework continue to be in benchmarking, planning, and executing alternative inventory, space, and people strategies in an integrative fashion.

Considers reasons for failure among pure play Internet grocery retailers. Notes that two factors seem to be significant. First, they did not achieve anything like a competitive advantage over the traditional “bricks and mortar” food retailers on those dimensions that drive the consumer store/channel choice process. Second, they did not develop a business model that reaches profitability, perhaps ever. They apparently did not foresee that total operating costs per customer were substantially higher for Internet grocery retailing than for “bricks and mortar” grocery stores, and that this new channel would have to charge consumers substantially more to reach breakeven operating levels. In fact, many pure play Internet grocers tried to price competitively against traditional food retailers and as a result, did not even cover variable costs. Hence, the more they sold, the more they lost. Eventually, they ran out of cash and were unable to raise additional monies in the market. Finally, there is some evidence that Internet grocers dramatically overestimated the size of the market for grocery shopping from the home. In the final analysis, pure play Internet grocer retailers appeared sexy and were hot for a short period of time because of the romance of the Internet. In fact, they were nothing more than fancy grocery delivery companies – which have never made money in the mass market and probably never will.

Contrary to popular myth, the department store industry is not dead, dying, or comatose. While return on investment in the aggregate among all department stores in North America is near the bottom of the retailing spectrum, at about 12 percent, there is also a high variance in performance across organizations. Companies such as Nordstrom on the west coast, Parisien in Alabama, and the Hecht Division of the May Company are realizing highly satisfactory rates of return on investment. The industry is rapidly becoming rationalized through mergers (Campeau/Allied and May/Associated Dry Goods, for example) and closures (Gimbels). Our own recent fashion study in Chicago indicated that the two leading department stores — Marshall Fields and Carson Pirie Scott— show gains in market share since the last such study in 1979–1980 while other chains such as Sears and the mass merchandisers have suffered serious declines in market position.

The retail food market has been wracked by traumatic changes for more than a decade. In the 1970s A & P, the largest chain at that time, was well on the way to oblivion until rescued in a foreign takeover by the West German firm of Tengleman. Safeway, the 1986 market share leader nationally, chose a leveraged buyout rather than a takeover and currently has many divisions in the U.S. up for sale. Within a year or two, Safeway will be a pale shadow of its former self, because it failed to adapt to intense competition. Kroger, the current industry leader, has already begun closing stores in many major markets. In the meantime, the strong regionals such as Food Lion, Shaw's, Hannaford Bros., Randall's, Smith's, Bruno's, Weiss, Albertsons, Publix, Giant Food, Pueblo International, H. E. Butt, and Hughes, are challenging the largest national chains for market share in carefully chosen fields of battle. Overall, the supermarket industry experienced an after tax return on net worth of 14 percent in 1986.

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the underlying reasons for the recent slow‐down in the rate of sales growth for the world's largest retailer, its implications for the economic valuation of this enterprise, and its future as a cohesive organization.

Wal‐Mart's comparative or same store sales growth over the last five years are contrasted with two of its key rivals Target and Costco, and the source and momentum of its core US growth record are examined over the last decade.

The results of the investigation indicate that Wal‐Mart has entered a new phase in its evolution as an enterprise, and the future rates of its growth will be limited to 3‐4 percent per annum in comp, and 10‐12 percent in total sales, excluding any acquisitions. This “new normal” is in part due to the extreme market share of Wal‐Mart in many of its trading areas, and the changing competitive landscape that was in no small part “created” in reaction to Wal‐Mart's own market power.

The analysis and its conclusions are of interest to retailing students and scholars who have been following the Wal‐Mart enterprise throughout the years, as well as retailing and merchandising analysts who have been struggling to define a new valuation model for the world's largest retail company. The paper is also of interest to retail market strategist as it illustrates that there are potential and natural limits to growth in all competitive arenas, and sources of new growth will always have to be sought in new product‐market spaces.

Product enthusiasts, increasingly prevalent in American society, represent significant marketplace forces because of their high levels of information seeking, opinion leadership, and innovativeness. For marketers to best serve these consumers, many commonly used marketing strategies must be altered or adapted. In this article, marketing mix elements serve as a framework to discuss strategic issues relevant to this category of consumer.

To determine whether French and English Canadians had different information search patterns prior to automobile purchase, 210 buyers of 1983 and 1984 Ford and Toyota automobiles in two Ontario and two Quebec cities were surveyed. We hypothesised the English‐Canadian car buyers prefer printed sources of information, while French‐Canadian buyers prefer personal sources, consider fewer alternatives, devote less time to the search process, and generally search less extensively for a new car than do English Canadians. Three of the five hypotheses were supported. Compared to their English counterparts, French Canadians evaluated ten per cent fewer alternative car makes, spent 30 per cent fewer days in the search process, took 67 per cent fewer test drives, and scored eight per cent lower on a measure of overall depth of search. As the French search pattern perhaps entails a greater risk, marketers in Quebec may need to provide better warranties and after‐sales service than in Ontario.

There are few if any marketing concepts that have generated effort as voluminous and sustained as marketing segmentation. From the middle 1950's to the present, the topic has attracted both academicians and practitioners because of its inherent intellectual challenge and relevance to real world marketing decision making.

Reviews the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoints practical implications from cutting‐edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

Since being founded in 1962 by Sam Walton, Wal‐Mart has grown into a global company with more than 1.3 million associates worldwide and nearly 5,000 stores and wholesale clubs across 15 countries. However, a number of events and headlines have recently thrust Wal‐Mart into the center of public attention for all the wrong reasons.

Provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world's leading organizations.

The briefing saves busy executives and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy‐to‐digest format.