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With a decrease in consumer spending during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many retailers are offering price reductions to stimulate demand. However, little is known about how consumers perceive such price reductions executed during turbulent times. The authors examine whether the timing of price reductions and individual differences impact consumers' evaluations of the retailers offering such reductions.

Using a longitudinal design, the authors inquire into four retailers' motives that consumers may infer from a price decrease at two different times during the COVID-19 crisis.

The authors find that the timing of price reductions plays a key role in shaping consumers' inference of retailers' motives. The authors also uncover individual characteristics that affect consumers' inferences.

This research advances the literature by demonstrating the critical role of timing and individual characteristics in consumers' perceptions of price reductions during times of crisis. The authors findings also provide retailers with actionable insights for their pricing strategies. The findings may be generalizable to other types of crises that may arise in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how well grocery stores' motives to implement private labels (create margins and customer perceived brand value, compete with market leading brands, develop store image, enhance store loyalty) are realized, through exploring consumers' attitudes, preferences and behaviour.

The paper is based on the case of Sweden and interviews with the primary grocery purchaser in 300 households who have visited an ICA store (a Swedish supermarket chain) within a time period of the previous 30 days before the interview.

The study shows that there is a correlation between perceived quality and the price customers are willing to pay for private label products. Results also show that there is a strong correlation between perceived value of private label products in specific categories and the stores' overall product variety image. The study further supports the assumption that store loyalty is influenced by the perceived value of the grocery retailer's private label products.

The study is limited to Sweden and to only one retail chain. Also, it is an attitude‐ and survey‐based approach rather than based on observation or actual spending data.

The results will guide retailers if and how they are fulfilling their ambitions regarding their private label merchandises. The study could provide manufacturers and consumer organizations an insight into how consumers respond to this new phenomenon.

It is a report beyond the dominating empirical research contexts of the UK and USA. From a conceptual point of view, the paper adopts a more holistic approach investigating the four major retailer motives simultaneously.

There is research evidence that suggests that perceptions of price unfairness give rise to consumer resistance to prices and result in decreased profit to the firm. However, it is as yet unclear what factors influence perceptions of unfairness. Answers the question, “What is fair?” by proposing that consumers sometimes infer a firm’s motive for a price and that the inferred motive influences perceived price fairness. A study provides evidence that consumers use contextual information to infer a firm’s motive. When consumers infer a negative motive, the price is perceived to be unfair and when consumers do not infer a negative motive, the same price is perceived to be fair. Suggests that marketers should: provide reasons for prices; consider consumers’ likely inferences of motive and either avoid taking actions that are likely to give rise to inferences of negative motive or manage the motive inferred; and consider the inferences that consumers may make for other marketing actions in addition to price.

From an international retailing perspective, this empirical study aims to examine luxury fashion retailers' changing marketing strategies in China.

Using case studies of 14 luxury fashion retailers, qualitative data were collected via 31 semi-structured executive interviews.

Both standardised global and localised multinational marketing strategies were found to have initially been employed by luxury fashion retailers entering into China. Subsequently, localised multinational strategies became increasingly important for their post-entry operations and business development, particularly in terms of their product strategies. More specifically, as well as the introduction of Chinese brand names, product design has been adapted according to Chinese market conditions, and product portfolios have been adapted to satisfy regional differences. However, localised product sourcing in China is far less common.

As the findings are generated from China, they may not explain luxury fashion retailers' marketing strategies in other markets. Despite the relatively small sample size, the 14 luxury fashion retailer case studies originate from across a wide range of countries, retail formats and ownership structures and are therefore considered to be varied enough to represent the market.

The study offers practitioners insights into the success that can be generated by the manipulation of marketing strategies, particularly product strategies, within the world's second biggest luxury market.

This paper extends the current international retailing literature by examining and comparing the motives and practices of luxury fashion retailers and the increasing localisation of their marketing strategies in China as they move from initial market entry into their post-entry operations.

Addresses an area which has been neglected in the international retailing literature; the internationalisation of the fashion designer’s brand. Initial exploratory research revealed that there were 114 international fashion design houses competing for a global market of around £24 billion. Further research by postal questionnaire to entrants into the UK market, in addition to semi‐structured interviews with European and US designers, confirmed that this market was buoyant, fuelled by the development of diffusion lines for the mass market. Identifies four stages of market development: wholesale channels to department stores; the creation of ready‐to‐wear flagships; large diffusion flagships; the opening of stores in provincial cities. In order to acquire capital to enable this expansion, over 60 per cent of all fashion designers are now public limited companies. Even then franchising of stages 3 and 4, diffusion line development, is often franchised to third parties with the designer maintaining control over the product and its brand image. Between 20‐30 per cent of gross margin is spent on advertising support to create global campaigns to enhance brand image in foreign markets. However, there is increasing tension between the desire to be exclusive yet becoming involved in product line extensions and widespread distribution which could ultimately dilute the brand’s value.

In the light of recent changes in the international environment, the purpose of this paper is to consider whether the drivers of, and impediments to, retail internationalisation and the business strategy adopted have also changed.

Interviews were conducted with 12 UK and US retailers. These exploratory data were combined with a review of the literature to explore changes in the drivers and impediments of retail internationalisation.

Findings of this study suggest that, while a variety of factors drive retail internationalisation, profit growth is the most dominant motivator. In terms of impediments to foreign expansion, domestic market conditions were a barrier to the initiation of foreign expansion, whilst the regulatory environment and previous experiences presented obstacles in the process of internationalisation. Interviewees also expressed a desire for increased standardisation, while acknowledging the need for a substantial degree of adaptation in response to cultural differences.

The research findings are limited in terms of their generalisability.

Much of the existing research into retail internationalisation was conducted in the 1990s. Given the substantial changes that have occurred over the past 15 years, the value of this paper lies in the updating of knowledge.

International retailers are increasingly using franchising as a means of entering foreign markets. However, international retail franchising lacks a conceptual basis from which an explanation of the major elements of this activity can be generated. Agency theory and its major premises of information asymmetry, monitoring costs, moral hazard and opportunism, are introduced in an attempt to provide an initial effort at bridging this conceptual gap. The paper reviews international retailing and franchise research before explaining agency theory. A discussion follows on how agency theory can explain major elements of international franchise activity of retail firms such as the international retail franchise process and the operationalisation of the international retail franchise system.

In recent years the scale and scope of retailer internationalisation activity has grown markedly, mainly through increasing levels of cross‐border merger and acquisition activity. This has been particularly prevalent among companies operating in the food retail sector. During this time, and within the context of increased merger and acquisition activity in international markets, the financial institutions have taken an increasingly prominent role in the retail internationalisation process. Explores the nature of the financial institutions’ role in the retailer internationalisation process and, specifically, the extent to which the financial institutions actually inhibit and/or promote retail international activity. A key purpose of this study is to examine some of the drivers and inhibitors of the retailer internationalisation process. Reports the findings from 30 in‐depth interviews with food retail analysts of the leading investment banks in the City of London. The findings from this study should help to provide further insights into the nature of the retailer internationalisation process.

The purpose of this paper is to broaden the list of boundary factors which impact consumer evaluation of ambient scenting. More specifically, this study aims at demonstrating that pre-informing about the scenting measure, the particular environment in which the scenting takes place and the disposition of persuasion knowledge are necessary variables to be considered for achieving positive evaluations.

A field experiment was carried out in a local grocery store (a “pay-now” environment) and in a medical therapy centre (a “pre-paid” environment, n=200). The paper draws on the theoretical concept of spreading activation, the consumer decision process and the persuasion knowledge model. Data were analysed by using ANOVA and moderated regression analysis.

Consumers evaluated the scenting as more favourable when having been pre-informed about the marketing measure. Consumers were also more in favour of ambient scents in the usage-oriented, pre-paid service environment than in the purchase-oriented, pay-now store environment. Persuasion knowledge moderated the relationship between environment and evaluation of ambient scenting.

As important research implication, the role of customers’ pre-information, environment and persuasion knowledge as boundary factors for scent marketing interventions is supported. These results can inform retailers how best to proceed in scent marketing. Future research could extend the present results with various informational measures and in different pre-paid and pay-now environments and experiment with different scents.

The results speak for pre-informing customers and using scents particularly in pre-paid environments, such as medical therapy centres. For customers with a higher level of persuasion knowledge, pre-information and a fitting environment are particularly advisable.

This paper adds important insight to scent marketing literature by addressing additional boundary factors which so far have been neglected. Methodologically, it differentiates itself by employing a field experiment, which offers higher external validity than laboratory experiments which are frequently used in scent research.

The purpose of this paper is to challenge earlier recommendations and explanations regarding companies’ behaviour after an economic shock and analyses worldwide retail companies’ internationalization processes before and after the 2008 crisis.

Drawing on information published between 2003 and 2012, the authors focus on the 2008 crisis and analyse 1,500 different internationalization moves by 109 companies from 26 countries.

The analyses confirm that the pace of retail internationalization increased after the 2008 crisis, that these companies had mainly moved into countries with newly developing economies, and that the entry modes ranged from high-cost entry modes and low-cost strategies.

This paper provides an initial indication of retailers’ actual internationalization behaviour in the period considered. Such material has not been available previously as international retailing research has primarily focused on theoretical assumptions. By focusing on the current financial crisis, the authors highlight the problem that researchers investigating various company behaviours face when comparing these to the theoretical expectations. By using a worldwide, multisectorial, and longitudinal retailing sample to illustrate the internationalization process, the authors not only generalize companies’ internationalization behaviour, but also challenge earlier recommendations and explanations regarding their behaviour after an economic shock.