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The learning outcomes of this study are as follows: 1) identifying challenges confronting small businesses in emerging markets using the SWOT framework; 2) the application of the Porter’s five forces model in analysing industry dynamics for small businesses; and 3) evaluating business expansion decisions using the force field analysis framework.

Freshood Express Store was a convenience store owned and managed by Mr Cuthbert Tsikira. Freshood Express Store operated grocery convenience stores in partnership with a government-owned fuel retailer in Zimbabwe. It operated two grocery convenience stores in Harare and Bindura. Its business environment was a complex and highly competitive industry with large retailers such as OK supermarkets and TM-Pick n Pay. These large retailers enjoyed massive discounts from powerful suppliers, which enabled them to charge low prices in the market. However, Freshood Express Store, as a small business, sourced their stock from the same suppliers on a cash basis. The playing field was thus uneven. In early 2021, Freshood Express Store was offered two sites to open new establishments. These two sites were more than 200 km out of Harare, the major supplier hub for Freshood Express. In addition, large retailers had existing operations in the two proposed sites, thus adding serious competition. The dilemma confronting Mr Tsikira was as follows: Could he direct limited resources to existing establishments or new markets? He wanted a sound business analysis of the attractiveness of the proposed two markets before making a management decision to invest resources. The case focuses on the need to perform industry analysis before making strategic decisions. The use of the Porter’s five forces model and the force field analysis model to validate decisions after an industry analysis is the high point of the case.

This case study can be used to teach the environmental analysis topic in emerging markets in the small business management course.

Teaching notes are available for educators only.

CSS 11: Strategy.

Examines the cross‐shopping patterns of 300 US consumers for five different grocery formats including conventional supermarkets, supercentres, warehouse clubs, convenience stores and limited line discount stores. The extent to which each channel extracts customers from every other channel is assessed and analysed in light of continuing structural change in grocery retailing. As a fairly new retail format in the US market, supercentres have moved quickly in attracting customers from each of the other formats. Discusses major players in the supercentre phenomenon in light of these changing market conditions.

Grocery retailers are operating in a slow‐growth market. The pursuit of market share is one of the main concerns for retail managers. The retail structure is becoming increasingly standardized and homogenous because of concentration of the ownership of stores. Cultural differences remain, however, between different European countries. Cultural factors influence the success of a positioning strategy. This study examined how consumers perceive grocery retail formats and brands in Finland. Data from personal interviews were used in highlighting the consumer perspective. Consumers perceive meaningful differences in various store formats, meanwhile store brands are seen as quite similar. Consumers rely on functional attributes of stores when discussing grocery stores. However, it seems that consumers are unable to recognize the fabricated, often imaginary differences at the brand level. The informant’s own, creative symbolic work results in this case to interpreting all grocery retail brands as similar. Managerial implications of the study are presented.

This study aims to examine whether the introduction of wine or regular strength beer (B) sales in Tennessee grocery stores significantly increased the number of alcoholic beverages (AB) consumed or excise taxes collected in the state.

This study uses both a time series and a model-based approach to assess if a significant change in alcoholic beverage excise tax collections occurred after the natural experiment. The study evaluates monthly tax collections from B, mixed drinks and AB between January 1968 and September 2018 published by the Tennessee Department of Revenue.

The findings suggest that neither alcoholic beverage consumption nor excise taxes collected increased substantially in Tennessee as a result of the introduction of wine and regular strength B in grocery stores. It is likely, however, that some changes inside the industry were significant.

This study assists policymakers and analysts in determining whether allowing the sale of wine and regular strength B in grocery stores will have a substantial impact on the total amount of AB consumed or excise taxes collected by the jurisdiction.

The purpose of this paper is to study the interrelationships among grocery store image, travel distance (TD), customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions (BI) in a college town setting.

Surveys are given to undergraduate college student grocery shoppers in a Midwest college town. The 400 usable questionnaires are randomly divided into two parts: one subsample was used for exploratory factor analysis while the other (larger) subsample was used for confirmatory factor analysis and subsequently the structural path analysis.

Grocery store image is identified as a second‐order construct reflected by the three key components of merchandise attributes (MEA), store ambience and service (SAS), and marketing attractiveness (MGA). Although store image is an important driver of BI, its indirect effect through customer satisfaction is found to be substantially greater than its direct effect on BI. Interestingly, TD is positively related to satisfaction, which highlights the possibility for retailers to overcome the distance disadvantage.

As few studies have attempted to characterize the US grocery market in terms of the reasons for their choice, this exploratory study is unique because it investigates grocery shopping behavior in a traditional American college town. Specifically, the distinctive market factors (e.g. the relative scarcity of grocery retailers, their distance from campus, and the mix of grocer types in or around the Midwest college town) add value and contribute to the retailing literature.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how elements of the built environment may or may not influence the frequency of grocery shopping.

Using data from the 2009 Seattle Obesity Study, the research investigated the effect of the urban built environment on grocery shopping travel frequency in the Seattle-King County area. Binary and ordered logit models served to estimate the impact of individual characteristics and built environments on grocery shopping travel frequency.

The results showed that the respondents’ attitude towards food, travel mode, and the network distance between homes and stores exerted the strongest influence on the travel frequency while urban form variables only had a modest influence. The study showed that frequent shoppers were more likely to use alternative transportation modes and shopped closer to their homes and infrequent shoppers tended to drive longer distances to their stores and spent more time and money per visit.

This research has implications for urban planners and policy makers as well as grocery retailers, as the seemingly disparate groups both have an interest in food shopping frequency.

Few studies in the planning or retail literature investigate the influence of the urban built environment and the insights from the planning field. This study uses GIS and a planning framework to provide information that is relevant for grocery retailers and those invested in food distribution.

This study aims to measure the association between local retail grocery provision and private residential rental prices in England. Renting is an important sector of the housing market in England and local grocery provision is an important aspect of service provision and consumers are known to be highly sensitive to the branding of this type of retailing.

This research uses a novel data source from a property rental Web platform to estimate a hedonic model for the rental market. These models incorporate information on the nature of the properties and their neighbourhoods, with an emphasis on how different retail brands are associated with rental prices. This retail brand is captured on two scales: the provision of local branded convenience stores and the provision of larger stores.

The study finds clear differentials in how the local grocery brand is associated with rental prices. When controlling for commonly explored confounding factors, “Luxury” retailers such as Waitrose and Marks and Spencer are associated with higher rental prices, while “Discounter” retailers are associated with lower rental prices. This finding has many implications, particularly in relation to potential price changes in an already challenging housing market for many people.

This is an observational study and as such only associations (not causation) can be implied by these findings.

The focus of this research is on the private residential property market, an important market in England but one that has enjoyed less scrutiny than the sales or socially rented markets. Rather than using general accessibility to retail, this research has differentiated the association by the retail brand and store size, two very important aspects of consumer choice.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of consumers’ perceptions towards volume discount (VD) benefits on their intention to purchase grocery products under this scheme using deal proneness as a moderator.

Data were gathered through a survey of 583 Malaysian consumers, and were analysed using the partial least squares technique.

The results showed that perceived savings, self-expression value, and convenience positively affected consumers’ intention to purchase grocery products under VDs. Deal proneness negatively moderated the relationship between perceived quality, innovation, and consumers’ intention to purchase under VDs.

The findings of the study will help retailers to understand the effects of consumers’ perceptions of VD benefits on their intention to purchase products under VDs, thereby allowing retailers to promote products under VDs more effectively.

Although the VD is a common type of sales promotion, this topic is rarely explored. This study thus contributes to the advancement of knowledge by determining the effects of the potential benefits of VDs on consumers’ intention to purchase.

The aim of this paper is to address intertype cross-shopping behavior – that is, the behavior that characterizes consumers who divide their grocery shopping between two or more different food formats. In particular, the study attempts to shed light on the cross-shopping phenomenon by employing a new research approach that examines format-selective use. Thus, the study examines how various factors, especially way of life aspects typically associated with food consumption, drive consumers to cross-shop between different food formats.

The study employs data collected from two surveys involving 637 Israeli Jewish and Arab consumers. The conceptual framework and hypothesis are tested using multiple regression analyses.

The empirical results support our claim that the research approach applied in this study better explains the cross-shopping phenomenon. Specifically, the analysis provides strong support for the effect of consumers' way of life on cross-shopping behavior.

The paper provides managerial and planning implications to modern retailers and managers of international retail firms that operate in or plan to enter non-Western markets.

This paper contributes to the available literature in several ways. In particular, the paper suggests a systematic and comprehensive conceptual framework that identifies the key determinants of cross-shopping decisions and the relations between these and supermarkets' market share growth.

The burgeoning of the convenience store in the UK is taking many forms — from the home‐grown variety (often via symbol groups) to transatlantic imports. What they have in common is extended opening hours and a broad variety of merchandise, hut within that band there are many variations, and the style of the operations are often dictated by the character of the parent company. We are now seeing the beginnings of an indigenous multiple, which, while springing from the roots of a floundering grocery chain, nevertheless has a mark of distinction and has pushed the c‐store into the upmarket bracket for the first time. Sue Sharples looks at the new style Cullen's convenience store.