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The purpose of this study is to investigate firm‐ and country‐level drivers of retail performance.

A database of the top 200 global retailers was primarily constructed from the 2005 Global Powers of Retailing data. Regression was used to test the hypotheses.

The predictors are able to explain firm level variations in sales growth, but not ROI. While retailers' sales growth is positively related to expansion speed, it is negatively related to number of retail formats and number of countries of operation. Moreover, retailers who choose to expand into a host country that is less developed, with relatively high disposable income, tend to be more successful than others.

This study is focused on the foreign expansion process and characteristics of the top performing retailers and their first foreign expansion destination.

Findings reflect differences in internationalization strategies of top retailers. Findings also provide guidance for companies who already have foreign subsidiaries, and for those who are interested in opening new markets.

This paper examines the impact of the economic characteristics of the first host country entered and firm level resources and capabilities on two measures of firm performance. Empirical tests of the impact of retail portfolio management capabilities and international market portfolio management capabilities on retail sales growth are offered.

The purpose of this paper is to address the globalisation/culture issue by comparing two Asian countries in which there has been limited prior research regarding their respective supermarket industries, namely, Singapore and Malaysia.

The research design adopted a case-study approach, with two general cases (the New Singaporean and Malaysian supermarket retail industries), made up of two embedded cases each (retailers and manufacturers operating within each country).

The overall finding is that despite prior assumptions that suitability is reliant on product type or country choice, there are a number of sales promotion techniques that are inherently suited to the supermarket industry as a whole. The majority of these “inherently suitable” techniques are price-based and the conclusion is then that these techniques can be used globally. Value-added techniques, on the other hand, should be localised to fit with the market in which they are being applied.

Tools best suited to the grocery product sales environment appear to be price-based or linked to price reductions (i.e. price discounting and discount-linked point-of-purchase (P-O-P) or end-of-aisle (E-O-A) displays combination and volume offers), suggesting that those tools which are inherently suitable to the industry are likely to meet retailers' shorter-term objectives rather than manufacturers' longer-term ones. The difficulty faced by manufacturers, then, is aligning their sales promotion objectives with the tools that are best able to achieve results in the supermarket environment.

Globalisation of the supermarket industry has also meant that marketers continue to need a better understanding of cross-cultural issues and their effect and national culture frameworks can be used to develop marketing theories which are suited to a particular region. The current research identifies preferences for different sales promotion techniques in the two nationally similar, yet ethnically diverse, countries under study, as well as examining application of these techniques in the retail environment.

Marketing strategy, retail/sales management and logistics.

Undergraduate and postgraduate.

Al Ain Dairy works is in one of the most highly competitive industries in the world – the food industry. In the dairy business, choice, freshness, safety standards, inventory management, supply chain and marketing are key to sustainability. Al Ain Diary explains some key challenges in this industry for managing and planning sales. This case builds on a previous case and can be used to teach marketing strategy, retail management and logistics. The case also gives an idea on the food industry especially the dairy market and some of the challenges associated with it.

Students can try forecasting and planning sales based on seasonal trends. Since the process complexity increases as the number of stock keeping units increase, the case provides a rich context of a company where inventory management is a key to success. Product portfolio management is another subject area of focus in this case. For market expansion, students can look at current organizational and market constraints, organizational competencies (and their transferability), and market synergies and similarities to recommend strategy.

Teaching notes.

When Library School Directors are next considering changes to their courses may I suggest the following additions: accountancy skills and retail sales management. Much of the time of a professional librarian can be spent accounting for every penny that is taken from the public. And these days this can amount to a tidy sum. Not only are there ever increasing fines and local histories to be sold, but fringe items such as children's badges, plastic bags and pencils. More dubious still are those non‐library sales functions bolted on to our traditional duties simply because we are a public service. Concert ticket sales, for example, are explained away as a legitimate municipal function.

The purpose of this paper is to characterize the internal dynamics of cross-functional teams (CFTs) in different organizational processes in a service company.

A case study from a Brazilian service company was conducted. CFTs in five different organizational processes (strategy development, product development, portfolio management, sales channels management and business analysis) were analyzed through in-depth interviews, documents and non-participant observation.

A framework with four pillars was constructed: constitution of the CFT, task drivers, behavior and attitudes of the team and personal motivators. It was possible to analyze the process of how a group acts and reacts under changing circumstances based on the pillars included in the framework.

The study is focused on creating analytical generalizability. Several insights in the 12 propositions presented in this study may be investigated in future research to validate the identified relationships among the pillars included in the framework. Moreover, the proposed framework allows the teams to be analyzed through a multidimensional view: structure, processes and impacts.

If the semantic boundaries of the communication are not well delineated, the differences in understanding can generate manifest conflicts. Moreover, the workload in a CFT seems to be larger and more complex than working in a functional activity; however, members perceive that it reduces the risk of unemployment and increases motivation.

The present study contributes to the extant literature with the proposal of a set of new exploratory propositions that can support future quantitative research about the use of CFTs in the service industry context.

This paper presents a case study of a pioneering nationwide implementation of SERVQUAL by a major UK high street bank between 1993 and 1997 at an annual cost of one million pounds. In addition to highlighting serious weaknesses in the value of SERVQUAL as a measure of service quality and as a diagnostic tool, this study raises some of the practical difficulties entailed in its implementation. Moreover, in this particular instance, it becomes apparent that difficulties are introduced by the separation of service quality management from the management of marketing and human resources. In addition, there was a discernible lack of top management commitment, as well as obstacles in the form of functional and informational silos, which served to constrain an integrated company response to SERVQUAL criteria.

Private brands currently account for 25% of all retail sales and Management Horizons predicts that by 1990 that figure will have risen to 30%. Private branding is no longer the ‘poor relation’ but a positive aid to increased profits as speakers at a recent conference, argued.

The authors propose a dairy bundle, integrating strategies to jointly maximise producer revenue and consumer utility according to the latter's preferences.

An algorithm based on a nested logit model identifies the bundle maximising producer revenue based on factors affecting consumer purchase behaviour. The data are drawn from a mall-intercept survey administered in Iran, with consumers stating a hypothetical choice among a comprehensive set of dairy products.

Demographic characteristics and marketing mix elements significantly affect consumers' preferences. An algorithm based on the estimated dissimilarity parameter determines the best bundle of dairy products, simultaneously obtaining the highest utility and the highest expected revenue.

Consumer preference and maximum producer or retail seller income are considered simultaneously. The bundling promotion strategy is widely used for food offerings and fresh foods and can be extended to other products.

我們擬根據消費者偏好，提出一個整合了多個策略的捆綁包，以使生產製作者得到最高的收入和最佳的消費者效用。

研究人員根據巢式Logit 模型的演算法確認了一個捆綁包，以使生產製作者能得到最高的收入，而這均建基於會影響消費者購買行為的各個因素。有關的數據取自於伊朗的商場內進行的攔截調查，而回應的消費者須假想他們從一整套乳製品中選擇他們會購買的產品。

研究結果顯示，人口特徵和市場營銷組合元素均會顯著地影響消費者的偏好，一個基於估算的相異性參數而建立的演算法可確認最佳的乳製品捆綁包，這演算法同時也可取得最佳的裨益和最高的預期收入。

於本研究中，研究人員同時考慮消費者的偏好和生產製作者或零售賣家的最高收入。捆綁式的促銷策略在食物供品和新鮮食品方面被廣泛使用，這策略可擴展至其他產品。

乳製品捆綁包、消費者偏好、最佳化演算法、巢式Logit 模型.

As a supply chain management initiative, category management has to date been the almost exclusive preserve of the grocery sector and, within that sector, limited to food categories. This paper proposes that the fashion industry might usefully follow the grocery industry's lead and implement category management. A comprehensive review of the literature on category management highlights the opportunity for fashion marketing to consider the potential of category management, and the specific research gaps. In operationalising the subsequent research objectives, the paper reports the results of exploratory, in‐depth consumer research for a particular category of intimate apparel. The managerial implications of these findings are then discussed in the context of the established eight‐step category management process. The overall tentative conclusion of this study is that as a consumer‐oriented joint planning tool, category management offers retailer‐supplier partnerships in the fashion industry an important adjunct to the industry's quick response methods. The paper closes with an agenda for future research.

This study aims to discern emerging trends and provide a longitudinal perspective on merchandising research by identifying relationships between merchandising-related subdomains/themes.

This study sourced 657 merchandising-related articles published since 1960, from the Scopus database and 425 from Web of Science. After processing and normalizing the data, this study performed co-word and thematic network analyses. Taking a text mining approach, this study used topic modeling to identify a set of coherent topics characterized by the keywords of the articles.

This study identified the following merchandising-related themes: branding, retail, consumer, behavior, modeling, textile and clothing industry and visual merchandising. Although visual merchandising was the first type of merchandising to be used in-store, only recently has it become an emerging topic in the academic literature. There has been a further trend over the past decade to understand the adoption of simulation technology, such as computer-aided design, particularly in supply chain management in the clothing industry. These and other findings contribute to the discussion of the merchandising concept, approached from an evolutionary perspective.

The conclusions of this study hold implications at the intersection of merchandising, sectors, new technologies, research methodologies and merchandising-practitioner education. Research trends suggest that, in the future, virtual reality and augmented reality using neuroscientific methods will be applied to the e-merchandising context.

The different dimensions of merchandising can be used to leverage store managers’ decision-making process toward an integrated store-management strategy. In particular, by adopting loyalty merchandising tactics, the store can generate emotional attachment among consumers, who will perceive its value and services as unique, thanks to merchandising items designed specifically with that aim in mind. The stimulation of unplanned purchases, the strategic location of products and duration of each merchandising activity in the store, the digitalization of merchandising and the application of findings from neuroscience studies are some of the most relevant practical applications.

This study provides the first-ever longitudinal review of the state of the art in merchandising research, taking a holistic perspective of this field of knowledge spanning a 60-year period. The work makes a valuable contribution to the development of the marketing discipline.