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Food retailers invest heavily in design expertise to create exciting packaging and to develop store environments to entice customers to buy premium food products, and to strengthen their competitive edge. The process by which food retailers manage design has not been documented and this is an oversight in the field of design management that this paper addresses. Cases of four UK retailers are presented and their approaches to design management are compared and discussed. A model of retail design management is presented which represents current “better practice” in UK food retail; in addition, a model of the seven Ps of design management is presented to foster better understanding of the role of food retail design management function.

Every organisation invests in design to create and develop distinctive products and services. The development of a coherent design and marketing philosophy is essential to the achievement of a longer‐term competitive edge. However the marketing literature hardly refers to design and where it does so there is a great deal of confusion as to what design means. Design is taken to encompass styling, fashion and product development and innovation. Key findings of a major study recently undertaken by the Design Innovation Group (DIG) are reported here. The research investigated the risks and rewards of investment in design by British companies participating in the Department of Trade and Industry/Design Council′s Funded Consultancy Scheme and subsequent Support for Design Programme. The study showed that investment in design does pay. But design effort could be more fully exploited if marketing practitioners as well as other managers acquired design management skills.

Although there has been some research into young consumers, for instance their approaches to product categorization; their decision‐making strategies; and their role in family decision making, considerable work remains to be done to understand how young consumers develop brand loyalty, brand preference and reliance. This paper reports the initial findings from an exploratory study of over 200 young consumers (aged 7‐10) which examined perceptions of branded fashion clothing; and the impact of social influences on young consumers’ evaluations of branded fashion products. The findings indicate that product/brand imagery is clearly established among young consumers, particularly for branded fashion sportswear; and the results suggest that research design must take account of both age and gender differences when choosing methods for eliciting data from young consumers.

The paper describes a study carried out on Budget Day, 10 March 1981. The behaviour of user groups and the problems encountered in accessing viewdata were observed in four different libraries. Attitudes of library staff to the service were collected and the Budget News presented by various Information Providers (IPs) was analysed. The findings of the research are discussed. The paper focuses on the changes viewdata has initiated in library organization and in the working practices of librarians, the patterns of user behaviour and the particular ways in which news is structured by different IPs. The role of libraries in promoting viewdata is considered. Variations in methods of presentation by six IPs are discussed.

This paper seeks to address the complex nature of fast fashion buying through case studies with a supermarket, department store and own brand label. The phenomenon of fast fashion raises questions about traditional approaches to sourcing and buying, which are addressed here.

Case studies were compiled with companies managing fast fashion, alongside other purchase and retail activities, namely a supermarket, department store and specialist fashion chain.

Reveals the buying practices for fast fashion, namely, a combination of global and local suppliers, a leagile approach is typical; trust is an important factor in the supplier‐retailer relationship to ensure fast delivery at an agreed quality; and integration of key internal activities and processes to facilitate the speed of buying decisions that may be required.

Gives insight into the factors affecting buying behaviour for fast fashion.

Sportswear within the clothing market has shown the strongest growth in the 1990s (Mintel 1998a), despite slow growth in the ‘general’ clothing sector.

The second annual conference of the Research Alliance of Fashion and Textiles (RAFT), hosted by the Department of Clothing Design and Technology of Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), took place in Manchester in June.

The textiles and apparel industry has been neglected in terms of supply chain management research. Recently, the industry has undergone a great deal of change, particularly with global sourcing and high levels of price competition. In addition, textiles and clothing has market characteristics, such as short product lifecycle, high volatility, low predictability, and a high level of impulse purchase, making such issues as quick response of paramount importance. This article discusses characteristics of the textiles and apparel industry and identifies the perspectives of lean, agile and leagility (a combination of these) within existing supply chain literature, which have been proffered as solutions to achieving quick response and reduced lead times. Through case studies of textile and apparel companies, different approaches to supply chain management are illustrated.

Food retailers invest heavily in design expertise to create exciting packaging to entice customers to buy premium food products, and to strengthen their competitive edge. The process by which food retailers manage food packaging design has not been documented and this is an oversight in the design management and retailing literatures that this paper addresses. An in‐depth case study of one of the top four UK retailers is presented and their approach pack design management is analysed and discussed. The process outlined here was in place in 1997 at a time when the retailer had just moved from number three in the market place to number two and was aiming to be number one. The process documented is that of a dynamic growing food retailer working on improving its brand image through packaging design.

This exploratory study examines fashion retailer use of Web sites of retailers operating within the UK. A survey of 990 fashion retailers was undertaken, 780 of which have a registered domain name. A content analysis of their Web sites took place in order to examine: first, retailer characteristics in terms of product focus, marketing positioning, operational structure type and Web site functionality; and second, to establish whether a relationship exists between online levels of involvement and specific fashion retailer characteristics. Results indicate that a high number of those surveyed (78.7 per cent) had registered a domain name and over half of those who had registered, had a Web site that was transactional. Fashion designer retailers predominantly use their Web sites as an informational tool. Whereas transactional retailers were predominantly made up of product specialist retailers who were multiple, independent, mail order or pure play retailers. In conclusion it is product specialists who have greater levels of involvement in e‐commerce.