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Despite menswear is gaining a significant relevance in terms of retail sales, it represents a neglected topic within the academic literature. Therefore, this paper aims at providing a better understanding of the formal menswear market by developing a tailor-made classification model for the identification of retailers' clusters and at discovering the critical success factors (CSFs).

This research looked at most formal high-end menswear retailers in Italy adopting a methodology based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process and multiple case studies. Thirty interviews were conducted with experts, managers and shopkeepers from case studies.

The study develops for the first time a classification framework of formal high-end menswear retailers and a matching matrix to jointly analyse retailers' clusters and customer profiles in Italy. The results identify the CSFs pursued by menswear retailers and highlight the existence of four clusters of retailers (Differentiated Fashion Firms; Formal Menswear Leaders; Tailoring Firms and Luxury Brands) and seven customer profiles (Habitual Professionals, Special Events, Young People, Occasional Professionals, Foreigners, VIPs and Fashionistas).

The formal high-end menswear represents one of the most traditional Italian heritage markets while being almost ignored in the academic literature. Thus, the value of this research lays in deepening our understanding of this market from the retailers' perspective, by providing for the first time a taxonomy of its players and contributing to identifying the CSFs and the main customer profiles.

Given the high costs of creating and sustaining brands it is not surprising that organisations wish to capitalise as far as possible on these assets. Designers and their financial backers are also active in this process; many of their customers or would‐be customers aspire to the label but not at the market level initially catered for. Extending brands has, as the literature attests, implications for the designer, manufacturer, retailer and customer. The purpose of this small‐scale study was to examine the phenomenon at least as it relates to menswear, from the perspective of the independent retailer, who still has a major role to play in this market.

UK fashion retailing is characterised by high levels of market concentration, centralisation and outlet standardisation. In the pursuit of market share, the multiple fashion retailers are implementing branding strategies that aim to differentiate their product offer and reinforce their market positioning. Empirical research, via key informant interviews, examined the branding decisions of two multiple fashion retailers and established four main methods of brand differentiation.

Physical distribution management in New Zealand, is still, in many companies, subordinate to other functions in the corporate organisational hierarchy. In this study of three industries (Menswear, Foodstuffs and Pharmaceuticals) it was found that most distribution executives were responsible for warehousing and transport with very little involvement in setting customer service levels, the very essence of physical distribution. These results were surprising considering that it was claimed that there existed a large degree of awareness about the importance of physical distribution in terms of a company′s overall success. The actual level of adoption and successful implementation of an Integrated Physical Distribution system was around 50 per cent. Here there was considerable disagreement between top management of a company and the senior distribution executive. These conclusions were drawn from the response by the General Manager/CEO of participating companies, together with independent responses from the person in the company “responsible for the planning and control of the distribution activities”. These responses were examined in three distinct areas: attitudes towards distribution, adoption of integrated distribution concept and company organisation of distribution activities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify men’s clothing market segments based on store types and generational cohorts and the retail attributes.

A total of 2,808 US male consumer data from Predictive Analytics survey were analyzed with correspondence analysis (CA) (to identify segments based on store types and generations), general linear model (GLM) (to determine what retail attributes were important to target each segment) and a Rasch tree model (to test items of each factor in their relative importance).

The CA produced three segments: Segment 1 (Gen Y male consumers who frequently shop at specialty stores), Segment 2 (Gen X males who frequently shop at discount stores and online stores) and Segment 3 (Baby Boomers and Seniors who frequently shop at department stores). GLM shows that fundamentals were important to all segments; experiential was most important to Segment 1, while promotion was most important to Segment 3. Rasch tree analysis provided specific information on retail attributes for each store type and each generation.

Future research could employ both the importance and performance of retail attributes that are measured on a rating scale to understand consumers’ attitudes toward each retail format.

This study provided men’s clothing retailers with current insights into the male consumer segments based upon generational cohorts and store types from which they can better develop appropriate positioning strategies to satisfy the needs of each segment.

This study addressed the men’s clothing market, a growing but largely ignored market in the clothing industry and the retail literature.

The degree of association between sophistication in distribution management and service performance differs across industries. While there are significant associations with some of the indicators of management sophistication in all three industries used in this study, there was no consistency in the results. The only industry for which there was statistical support for a positive association between management sophistication and service performance is foodstuffs. Even this only indicates poor service providers were less sophisticated management. For all three industry groups there is evidence that factors, other than the level of management sophistication, have influenced the service rankings. The differences in the relevant importance of customer service and the various elements of distribution service may be one such factor. The inconclusiveness of association results may have been contributed to by the failure to take into account inter‐relationships between various subsets of management variables.

Supply chain management (SCM) is conceived by academics and practitioners as either an extension of logistics or an all‐encompassing approach to business integration. From the authors’ point of view, SCM involves not only logistic activities but also other processes such as quality management. This paper seeks to understand how quality can be managed using a supply chain perspective and what the operative and strategic consequences are for both the individual companies and the whole supply network. It reports a case study conducted on Marzotto, an important Italian textile and apparel company, and its supply chain relationships. The study compares the quality practices in the two different kinds of supply network of which Marzotto is the focal firm. One is managed using a traditional customer‐supplier approach and the other a broader and more co‐ordinated perspective. In the latter case, it was found that the whole supply network could improve its ability to meet the expectations of the final consumer in terms of quality through the joint definition and co‐management of quality practices/procedures.

Overall performance of retail shares was bad during 1976. The list of sector leaders and laggards compiled at the beginning of January shows food and non food retailing well into the final half of the performance tables with falls of just over 10 per cent apiece. Although share prices have improved since the New Year in line with the market generally, stores, for instance showed a rise of just over 9 per cent, as against a market rise of over 11 per cent in the month running up to the middle of January. This lacklustre performance is hardly surprising in view of the fact that the trend in retail sales last year was flat or falling for most of the period. Earlier hopes of a growth in consumer spending during the autumn and winter were demolished by higher unemployment and the fall in sterling, which ate into disposable income through higher prices for some food and other imported goods. Profits, however, were a very different story, with margins, particularly in the food retailing sector, showing some very good improvement following the slowdown in wage increases and an easier position on the financing of stocks. But recovery here had already been discounted in a small rise in retail shares earlier on in the year, although this was evidently not maintained when it became apparent that the recession in the industry was deeper than first suspected. There is some evidence that retail sales are now showing some recovery. November's sales figures, for instance show a 17 per cent rise in value for that month over the same period of 1975 as against a rise of only 15 per cent for eleven months of the year overall. Food volume, in the wake of stiff price increases, is down by a percentage point, although the textile based sectors are apparently showing some improvement. But there is very little to encourage the view that a consumer boom is just round the corner, with unemployment continuing to increase, and what looks like yet another year of restricted wage increases. And retailing is not going to feature much in the sort of export led prosperity now being encouraged by the government. Apart from the now fabled presence of overseas shoppers in Oxford Street retailers are hindered, not helped by the fall in sterling. But obviously the consumers' pent up demand for goods will lead to a profits explosion if the economic climate turns warmer during the next few years. If there is going to be a bull market in shares based on oil prosperity in the 1980's retail shares will, as always be one of the sectors leading the market. They have been out of favour, with the occasional fillip for a good three years now, but still represent some solid value, not just in the relative stability of their earnings but in the large property base enjoyed by many of the famous High Street names.

With the emergence of new social attitudes and styles over the last ten years or so, many of the more old‐established menswear retailers found themselves losing business to the trend‐setters. But Homes have built their product range on “life style”, based on a belief that the Hornes customer is an individual and not a demographic category. This article discusses the management approach of an organisation which has grown from a loosely structured family firm into a company with a 1976 turnover of more than £10m.