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The purpose of this paper is to provide an analysis of a major retailer’s transition to omnichannel retailing (OCR) from an existing multichannel retailing (MCR) base. Using the illustrative case of Seven & I (S&I) Holdings, the paper positions OCR in terms of its goal to provide added customer value through a seamless brand experience.

The research uses a case study methodology, based on a series of in-depth interviews. Executives at S&I were interviewed as the core of the case, and supporting interviews were carried out with executives at Yamato Transport, Inditex Japan and Rakuten. Data collected in interviews were cross-referenced to industry and trade press reports, providing an illustration of the motivation and strategic decisions behind the transition to OCR, and of factors that have direct impact on the implementation of the model.

The results illustrate the difficulty in achieving OCR in terms of unifying customer experience across multiple channels. The case demonstrates the potential for cross-channel integration through multiple, but integrated touchpoints, and the leveraging of existing multichannel retail infrastructure and systems. In addition to confirming previous conceptual understanding of the transition process, the core findings demonstrate the importance of the strategic implementation process, the importance of the retailer’s brand portfolio and brand management, and the need to adjust and leverage existing facilities and infrastructure.

The study is limited by the single case employed, although the complexity of OCR implementation does not take away from the practical implications in a broader sense. It could be argued that the Japanese retail industry has some differences to other markets, but the customer-orientated nature of S&I’s implementation, and its aim to leverage existing infrastructure, is illustrative for similar strategies of retailers elsewhere in the world.

The study has value to both researchers and practitioners as a structured synopsis of an actual case of transition, and adds to the literature that relates to OCR and to Japanese distribution. It demonstrates not only the need for robust supply chain, logistics, IT, marketing and retail infrastructure, and integration across distribution systems, but also the importance of the retailer’s brand portfolio, which may need significant adjustment to best promote added customer value. The success of S&I is predicated on both the high population densities, characteristic of the Japanese market, and a strong, longstanding MCR base. Similar systems and implementation issues apply to other markets that operate under similar conditions.

The social implications of the paper relate to the fact that, although the transition to OCR may be a difficult, costly, and time-consuming proposition for a retailer, increasingly consumers are coming to expect both informational and purchasing options for brands to be available as, when and where they want them. The 24-7 nature of omnichannel also generates significant challenges in terms of work volumes and environmental impact. These issues are touched upon this paper.

This paper provides a case of a major and well-known retailer and the transition process towards an OCR model, of which there are currently few case studies available. It also adds significantly to the body of literature relating to Japanese distribution and provides insights into strategy not generally known in the English-speaking world.

Social media is an engaging area of research that is rapidly evolving. The purpose of this paper is to focus on how corporations should effectively utilize this new media as a marketing channel. The key to any successful communication strategy is matching the message to the target audience and achieving customer engagement. Two important target audience variables were identified as crucial when determining an organization’s social media communications strategy: the level of brand relationship, and the level of category involvement.

Depth interviews were initially employed, followed by questionnaires, and then computer assisted content analysis was performed on 723 online media articles relating to social media marketing to identify semantic and conceptual relationships.

Research from both a customer and corporate perspective led to insights into how organizations can develop their social media strategies in order to transform their brand message from being perceived as a commercial source of information to a social source – the social media transformation process.

This research suggests a finer level of segmentation of social media users that will lead to content strategies adapted to fit the current levels of brand and category involvement. This could be used by organization to develop a model of best practice to achieve their social media objectives.

It is crucial for organizations to understand how different groups of users influence, receive, curate, and interact via social media. The greater the depth of this knowledge, the greater the effectiveness of content marketing strategies developed by the corporation. Organizations that utilize social media marketing must carefully analyse the large amount of consumer information available to them, listen to consumer conversations, and determine the needs and segments that will be most receptive to different approaches. They must also accept that in a social media environment user generated content and interactive communication processes should be at the heart of successful strategy.

To date, there has been limited analysis of how relationship and involvement factors drive social media content (Cho et al., 2014; Malthouse et al., 2013). More research is needed to understand how key user characteristics lead to content that fully utilizes the social interaction and message diffusion potential of this media. This paper introduces a hierarchy of content marketing based upon the type of relationship between the user and the organization, as well as their level of product category involvement.

This paper aims to investigate how and when visual referents in brand visual aesthetics (i.e. colours, shapes, patterns and materials) serve as design applications that enable consumer diasporic identity.

This paper uses an innovative methodology that triangulates 58 in-depth interviews with diasporic consumers, 9 interviews with brand managers and designers and a visual analysis of brands (food retailer, spices and nuts, skincare, hair and cosmetics, ice cream and wine) to provide a view of the phenomenon from multiple perspectives.

This study illustrates how and when particular applications and compositions of product and design referents support diasporic identity for Middle Eastern consumers living outside the Middle East. Specifically, it illustrates how the design applications of harmonising (applying separate ancestral homeland and culture of living product and design referents simultaneously), homaging (departing from the culture of living product and design referents with a subtle tribute to ancestral homeland culture) and heritaging (departing from the ancestral homeland culture product and design referents with slight updates to a culture of living style) can enable diasporic identity in particular social situations.

Although applied to the Middle Eastern diaspora, this research opens up interesting avenues for future research that assesses diasporic consumers’ responses to brands seeking to use visual design to engage with this market. Moreover, future research should explore these design applications in relation to issues of cultural appreciation and appropriation.

The hybrid design compositions identified in this study can provide brand managers with practical tools for navigating the design process when targeting a diasporic segment. The design applications and their consequences are discussed while visually demonstrating how they can be crafted.

While previous research mainly focused on how consumption from the ancestral homeland occurred, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine how hybrid design compositions that combine a diaspora’s ancestral homeland culture and their culture of living simultaneously and to varying degrees resonate with diasporic consumers.

Frederick G. Kilgour, founder and architect of the On‐line Computerized Library Center (OCLC), and his wife Eleanor were special guests of the University of Alabama School of Library and Information Studies at its 1994 Alumni Day, 21 October 1994. The Kilgours toured the Library School, including its typesetting, bindery and computer laboratories, and electronic classrooms. Dr Kilgour spoke at the School's annual alumni day luncheon and made another formal presentation that evening. The evening lecture originated from the Tuscaloosa campus of the University of Alabama and was broadcast by the University's two‐way, interactive television system to audiences at sites in Auburn, Birmingham and Huntsville (points lying approximately at the vertices and centre of a triangle with sides 250, 265 and 330 kilometres long). Because of the interactive nature of the television system, Kilgour and his audience were able to see each other and to speak to each other.

This paper presents a historical overview of technological developments and their use in libraries and argues that librarians have always been amongst the first to adapt to, and use, the latest information handling and communications technologies. Points made are supported by many citations to the relevant literature of the time.

VINE is produced at least four times a year with the object of providing up‐to‐date news of work being done in the automation of library housekeeping processes, principally in the UK. It is edited and substantially written by Tony McSean, Information Officer for Library Automation based in Southampton University Library and supported by a grant from the British Library Research and Development Department. Copyright for VINE articles rests with the British Library Board, but opinions expressed in VINE do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the British Library. The subscription to VINE is £10 per year and the subscription period runs from January to December.

This experiment was set up to test the hypothesis that the validity of multiple choice tests is distorted by the effects of ‘educated’ and ‘wild’ guessing. Most practising teachers intuitively feel this hypothesis to be correct, whereas most authorities hold to the contrary. However, no convincing evidence to support either standpoint has yet, in the author's opinion, been produced.

A method is described for the construction of a control number for a bibliographical record which could provide a universal standard book number for that record. Since the new number relies on logical processes for its construction it could be obtained either manually or on the computer. The USBN consists of nine elements. The two most important of these are obtained from the title, and use a code for their construction which is based on the frequency of distribution of alphabetic letters.

On August 26, 1971, OCLC introduced the online union catalog and shared cataloging system. During the 1970s, OCLC focused its efforts on creating and expanding the online cataloging system and telecommunications network. It added an online interlibrary loan system in 1979. In the 1980s, OCLC began adapting distributed computing and microcomputing technologies as its product and service lines expanded to some 60 offerings. The organization also began looking at ways to move beyond bibliography by furnishing information not only to library staffs, but also to library patrons. In the 1990s, OCLC launched a new core business in reference services. (Smith, 1998, pp. 251–252). Now, in the 21st century, OCLC is introducing tools, services and infrastructure to manage the life cycle of digital content in libraries.