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The paper reports an interview-based study that considers market driving and market-driven activities within the disaggregated components of the business model. The empirical study is of IKEA in China over a 10 year period. Market orientation is considered as a position on a continuum rather than as binary positions. The components of the business model are developed from the Osterwalder and Pigneur structure. Over the study period, the balance between driven and driving orientations within components of the business model changed in multiple ways. This article's contribution is the illustration of disaggregating the market orientations of driven or driving activities and associating these with the particular components of the business model and so studying what happens to the driven-driving balance over time. The approach has wider applicability for attempts to understand the dynamics of international retailing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on all our lives. The pandemic has undoubtedly been a disruptive agent to the existing business models of retailers, their established operational practices and how consumers behave and shop. At a managerial level, new operating practices and service activities have been adopted as retailing has adjusted to changes in consumer behaviour, preferences and expectations. [Extracted from the article]

This article traces the emergence, evolution and demise of below-cost legislation in the grocery industry in the Republic of Ireland. The article adds to our understanding of the legislation by adopting the view that, by using the net invoice price as its definition of cost, the legislation increased two streams of quasi-rents, first on suppliers' brands and second on retailers' own brands, which acted to depress competitive forces and direct supplier-buyer negotiations to off-invoice discounts. Supplier-generated quasi-rents financed discounts and, when coupled with retailers' higher margins on their own brands, provided little incentive for a return to a price-competitive environment. Two factors undermined this situation: the substitution of discounters' products for suppliers' brands as the discounters share of the market grew and the increase in cross-border shopping. These had the combined effect of reducing the available quasi-rents earned in the Irish market, resulting in the breakdown of the status quo and a return to price competition. Through its impact on negotiations, the legislation also introduced inefficiencies to both retailers' and suppliers' businesses, representing additional waste that could have been more productively used to reduce consumer prices. The article endorses the Government's decision to rescind the order and remove an important constraint on both vertical and horizontal competitions. Lessons from the Republic of Ireland suggest that the competitive response to the removal of below-cost legislation, and reductions in prices, may take time and will depend on economic circumstances and a change in the prevailing norms of organisational behaviour and quasi-rent seeking opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews retail change in Europe over the past 20 years. The sociocultural context of retailing in Europe is briefly discussed before macro level changes in the relative scale of Europe's largest retail organizations over this period are explored. Three underlying themes to retail change are then discussed - the emergence of new markets, in relation to geographical, product, service and channel diversity; the evolution of the retailer as a brand, encompassing an holistic multifaceted conceptualization involving product, store and organizational dimensions; and the role of time as a competitive element through consumer and business behaviours, and in terms of the pace of strategy implementation. Finally, looking forward the study concludes with a number of underlying themes in the approaches taken by European retail organizations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to explore how retail store image is perceived by consumers from different cultural backgrounds and with different degrees of awareness and experience of the retailer. The subject is IKEA, a retailer recognized as having a global approach to the markets in which it operates, resulting in a highly standardized approach to store branding. However, rather than employing traditional methodologies to elicit consumer perceptions of store image, we attempt to capture consumer perceptions through interpretations of the visual images generated by the participants themselves. The photo-elicitation method employed captured the different interpretations and meanings attached to commonly identified elements of store image and reinforced the central role played by the store itself in retail image formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that when a retailer internationalizes, rather than aiming to achieve an exact replication (standardization) of its domestic store image abroad, it should aim for a standardized positioning strategy. The distinction between the consumer perspective of image and the managerial perspective of positioning is an important construct, which to date has received little consideration in retail internationalization. Based on the case of Dia, the Spanish limited line grocery discounter owned by Carrefour, a consumer survey conducted in Spain (the home market) and Greece (a host market) measured the company's store brand image and that of local competitors. Results show that although consumer perceptions of brand image differ in the host market from those found in the domestic market, when the local competitive context is taken into account, both stores are found to be perceptually distinct from the competition and occupy a similar market position. This suggests that the managerial focus should be on achieving a standardized position in a foreign market rather than pure image replication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Retailer brands are a common feature of most retail sectors today, and have made an important contribution to the financial performance of Britain's retailers. Over the past two decades, as retailers have adopted the marketing approach in their business activities, the nature and role of retailer brands in marketing strategies has changed. This paper reviews the development of retailer brands in the grocery market, from their original position as product alternatives to leading manufacturer brands, to brand alternatives in their own right. Part of this transformation has involved a revision of the packaging and presentation of these product ranges and this has led to accusations of copy-catting and theft of brand identity. The paper then explores the lookalike debate and reports on an exploratory study of retail brand recognition and the lookalike situation in those product markets which are not dominated by established manufacturer brands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

British grocery retailing has been seen as one of the best-managed sectors of Western retailing. Its main companies have an extensive development and profit record, based on their success in restructuring post-war grocery retailing. Recently however, concern has emerged about changes in the grocery market, particularly with emerging and competitive threats in the form of non-indigenous discounters. Some have argued that the 'golden age' of British grocery retailing is at an end. This paper seeks to understand how the current situation has developed and to consider whether the turning point has indeed been reached. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International retailing is widely recognized as a risky venture. The literature suggest that initial moves into foreign markets reflect attempts to minimize a range of perceived risks. Over time, as perceptions of risk change and experience curve factors come into play, one might expect a change of approach to foreign market investment. This paper examines the trends observed in British retail internalization over the 1960-90 period and examines changes in the volume, nature and direction of investment. The relationship of these trends to risk reduction strategies and how they may change over time are considered. Geographical and cultural proximity, the use of specific entry mechanisms and the nature of the sector concerned are seen to be important considerations in understanding the patterns seen over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whilst retail internationalization practice has a long history, academic research into retail internationalization is a more recent phenomenon. We argue in this paper that our continuing conceptualization of retail internationalization would be aided by incorporating aspects of failure in international retailing. In internationalization practice, failure would seem to be a common occurrence, whereas in academia, such failure has been almost routinely ignored. Here, we attempt to define and conceptualize failure in international retailing. We then put forward a series of propositions that might serve as a guide to future research on failure in retail internationalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the impact of takeover activity on shareholder returns on retail industry in Great Britain. Development of an approach used to measure the impact; Benefits and problems of retail acquisitions; Influence of takeover activity on structural changes affecting the industry.