Search results

One important arena for the study of the impact of larger retailers is, in the UK, the market town. This paper shows how locational policies of larger retailers – akin to WalMart openings in the US Midwest – are affecting these traditional towns in rural areas. The paper takes a case study approach by examining the pioneering fightback using the local loyalty card first adopted by Leominster in Herefordshire. Through time it emerges that the community has not been able to sustain its trading opposition to a large format intruder. However, its successes are noted – and study is made of copycat schemes in the UK. A paradox emerges: the most cohesive smaller communities with many independent retailers lack the resources to maintain the fight. Larger settlements can and do support more viable card schemes: but these towns (and cities) having greater populations are themselves already dominated by larger retailers.

Trends in food retailing in Britain suggest that the industry is restructuring. Groups such as J. Sainsbury, Tesco, Safeway and Asda are increasingly concentrating their efforts on opening new, large stores; usually superstores but, occasionally, hypermarkets. There is the increasing likelihood, then, that two or more such large stores will become rivals for the same shopper catchment area. A detailed examination of shopping behaviour in an area where the clear choice is between a superstore and a hypermarket is presented. Key measures of accessibility such as car ownership licence‐holding, car availability and bus availability are examined in order to highlight the spatial implications of this restructuring process.

Revisits a retail development near Stoke on Trent, UK, first reported on in 1998. It draws on recent work by Arnold and Luthra which has called for attention to be paid to the effects of large format (big box) retailing. To do so it draws on the opinions of members of the public who live within view of the Stoke on Trent development. It utilises before and after surveying, supplemented by interviews with a community leader, to show how redevelopment is viewed by those it most affects. Findings suggest that even the redevelopment of an existing site can generate protest. However, post‐opening, the concerns are more muted. The research process also reveals that the case study is one with implications for current concerns regarding future use of sites with A1 or open consent as defined under locally‐applicable land‐use planning regulations.

The analysis of attitude statements made in respect of grocery shopping has now been undertaken in several locations. Results from the Portsmouth area are reported and such statements are related to the grocery store actually reported as being used by respondents. A further refinement is to disaggregate the results by contrasting two source areas of shoppers, one with a higher socioeconomic profile. It is noted that differences do sometimes emerge in the responses offered by this segmentation. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Focuses on the changing nature of retail competition and the way it affects local consumer choice in the UK grocery sector. Integrates relevant literature on the economic aspects of competition with work on the changing corporate geographies of retailers. Links vertical market power (relative to suppliers) and multiple retailers’ ability to compete horizontally (relative to other retailers) in a given trading locality, and argues that this interaction has fundamentally altered the nature of competition. The increase in retail power that has resulted has served to redefine local consumer choice. Smaller retailers are disadvantaged by this shift because it has directly affected the store and product choices of consumer groups depending on their relative mobility. Argues for empirical work to ground and validate these assertions.

The downtown areas of many Canadian cities are very different from those in the United States — or if comes to that, from many in this country. They are, for the most part, pleasant to shop in; they have retained their employment base and are usually well integrated with public transport. Some cities have linking bridges between buildings which create a shopping system immune from the weather (highly desirable in Canada's frequent sub‐zero temperatures). Others have downtown shopping areas with underground links. Alan Hallsworth recently spent some time in Canada; these are some of his impressions.

In a case study at Waterlooville, Hants, parking is top of two lists of “hindrances” and “helpful factors” viewed by other retailers in the light of superstore competition. Alan Hallsworth draws the conclusion that superstore competition can again be confirmed as not “paramountly important” in the minds of other traders.

Discusses some of the implications of a policy such as that of Marks & Spencer to augment its high street floorspace with a limited selection of out‐of‐town developments. One such proposal was the plan to develop sites jointly with Tesco. Examines the experience of one such joint venture: the Brookfield Centre at Cheshunt.

A study is reported of West Edmonton Mall and Gateshead Metro Centre; the two shopping centres that are, respectively, the largest in the world and the largest in Europe. Examination of the background to the two developments reveals that public sector inputs to these “entrepreneurial” developments have been substantial. As with downtown revitalisation in the USA, the centres either gained substantial “enabling” funding from public sources, or carry with them the implication of infrastructural changes that must be publicly funded.

Examines some of the underlying assumptions, research objectives and practical applications of the repertory grid technique (RGT) in consumer research. It explains why the use and evaluation of the RGT should be grounded in the assumptions of the theory from which it derives, George Kelly’s personal construct psychology (PCP), and examines the way in which it is both congruent with and can contribute to the development of the emerging interpretive paradigm in consumer research. The specific questions that the RGT can help to answer about consumer behaviour experience are identified and illustrated with the findings from a short empirical study. Overall, it is argued that when the RGT is employed within the guidelines of PCP it provides a useful interpretive research framework for exploring some of the similarities and differences in the content and structure of consumers’ subjective meaning systems.