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The primary objective of this qualitative research is to gain a deeper understanding of the multi-channel impact on the role of sales forces and the way in which they are managed in a B2B context.

The authors compare the conclusion of their literature review with an analysis of the sales strategy of a leading cosmetic brand. They conducted their study by applying a multi-method qualitative research approach, which includes semi-structured interviews with managers and a research action performed by accompanying five salespeople on visits to their professional clients.

The results suggest that the development of a multi-channel context encourages salespeople to focus less on sales and order taking and more on advising clients about how best to develop their businesses. The multi-channel evolution seems to have enabled a transition of the role of sales people from a sales function to a function of a provider of personalized advice in the fields of business development, team management, salon promotions and merchandising.

The quest for coherence, particularly at the international level, would justify a broadening of our study to include the impact of multi-channels sales on the market positioning of the brand and of other brands in different industrial sectors.

The expansion of the multi-channel sales approach implies that managers are obliged to seek a convergence, or at least a degree of coherence between the different channels. This strategy can be used to promote an effective integration of channels at the international level into a single, reliable distribution system that avoids all forms of cannibalization. The Omni-channel strategy implies shifting the emphasis in the channel and moving from a focus on direct sales to the professional client (“selling-in”) to a stress on direct sales to the end user (“selling-out”).

This article provides an original analytical approach to highlighting training methods and systems of remuneration that will help sales forces to manage the inter-channel migration of their customers. Salespeople will then be able to view the future Omni-channel context as an opportunity to improve the status of their role.

The objective of this piece of qualitative research is to identify the key success factors (KSFs) of the grocery “click and drive” (or drive or drive‐in) model developed by French grocery retail companies and to understand the basis of their competitive advantages.

The authors compare the conclusions of a review of the literature with an analysis of the various grocery drive‐in approaches developed in France. These approaches are studied by applying a multi‐method qualitative perspective comprising semi‐structured interviews with managers and e‐consumer focus groups.

The research confirms – with the exception of the quality of customer reception, which is particularly valued by managers and consumers – the main key success factors identified in the literature, and reveals a real consensus among the main operators on those KSFs and on the nature of the kind of core competences required in order to obtain competitive advantages.

The comparison of the real profitability of “drive‐in” sales outlets and a more precise evaluation of the advantages of an integrated multi‐channel approach would provide more accurate results. Moreover, the authors have limited this study to an analysis of the French experience. The research implies that French grocery retailers should develop, along with a more differentiated logistical system, an improved approach to customer relations marketing. Moreover, it implies that “click and drive” outlets enable traditional grocery retailers to sharpen their competitive edge.

This article provides an original analytical approach to the identification of the critical success factors of large grocery retailers developing drive‐in services. In answering this research question, the study should also help large grocery retailers to achieve their development objectives and counter the stagnation of traditional retail formats, especially the hypermarket.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the retailer Carrefour in India.

The paper compares the retailer Carrefour and its competitors in India.

Carrefour needed time to tie up with an Indian partner to start retail operations in India. The company also delayed its retail plans to focus on launching cash and carry (wholesale) operations. The world's second biggest supermarket group by sales is negotiating with over six Indian companies including diversified business groups, retailers and mall owners.

The paper provides a discussion on the Indian retail sector and the retailer Carrefour.

In France, the consumer prices of major industrial brands have been rising for a number of years, while the price differential between these brands and the retailers' ones has widened. These consequences were attributed to the French legislation, particularly to the Galland Act, enacted in 1996, which regulated the banning of below cost resale. The aim of this paper is to explain the effects of the legislation on price competition within the grocery sector and to analyse the effects of the Dutreil Act, enacted in 2005, which modified the Galland Act.

The paper carried out an analysis of economic, strategic and marketing literature, as well as professional surveys, statistical data, balance sheets of the main retail groups and the authors did some interviews with retail and industry professionals.

This paper highlights the fact that, although price competition has been partially restored by the Dutreil Act (2005), the latter still has had some very negative consequences on industry/distribution relationships, on negotiations and on development of retailers' expertise. According to the authors, the same consequences will continue in the future, even after the new Chatel Act enactment (December 2007), unless the government will modify the existing regulation of negotiations.

The empirical data that would enable an evaluation of the impact of the legislation – such as retail prices and gross margins of different kinds of brands and retail formats, specially the size of merchandising and promotion fees (marges arrières) – are limited (and some of them controversial). Moreover, the explanation given in the paper is not sufficient to distinguish the inflationary impact of the legislation from that of other factors, which may have contributed to the same effect.

The main value of the paper is the explanation of the continuous negative impact – in terms of transaction costs and juridical risks – of legislation on negotiation practices between industry and distribution. The paper highlights the links between legislation, the negotiation practices and the price definition by retail and manufacturing firms.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: to identify, evaluate and structure the research that focusses on omni-channel retailing from the perspective of logistics and supply chain management; and to reveal the intellectual foundation of omni-channel retailing research.

The paper applies a multi-method approach by conducting a content-analysis-based literature review of 70 academic papers. Based on the reference lists of these papers, the authors performed a citation and co-citation analysis based on the 34 most frequently cited papers. This analysis included multidimensional scaling, a cluster analysis and factor analysis.

The study reveals the limited consideration of logistics and supply chain management literature in the foundation of the omni-channel retailing research. Further, the authors see a dominance of empirical research as compared to conceptual and analytical research. Overall, there is a focus on the Western retail context in this research field. The intellectual foundation is embedded in the marketing discipline and can be characterised as lacking a robust theoretical foundation.

The contribution of this research is identifying, evaluating and structuring the literature of omni-channel research and providing an overview of the state of the art of this research area considering its interdisciplinary nature. This paper thus supports researchers looking to holistically comprehend, prioritise and use the underpinning literature central to the phenomena of omni-channel retailing. For practitioners and academics alike, the findings can trigger and support future research and an evolving understanding of omni-channel retailing.

Click and collect (or grocery pickup) represents a growing part of the channel strategy of traditional off-line retailers. The aim of this study is to understand how customers develop their perceptions toward this new channel. In other words, what are the key factors explaining the long-term value creation for each “click and collect” system depending on consumers’ profiles?

On the basis of a quantitative survey of 479 respondents, this research uses confirmatory analyses based on the partial least square path modeling.

Based on the structural model, the study finds that the customers’ relations, website and pickup station are the most important factors creating value for customers whatever the internet grocery shopping model. The global conceptual model has been implemented under many variations to test the age effect and the kind of click and collect model. It is made evident that customers’ benefits vary regarding the kind of click and collect model and the age of customers.

This research allows a better understanding of the performance of the click and collect system by looking at the key factors that maximize the customers’ value and those that decrease it. Results precisely show variations of those factors according to the customer’s profile and the click and collect model.

This quantitative paper studies customer behaviors toward their usual retailer and their relationship with them. To do so, segmented approaches of the causal model are retained to provide specific recommendations.

The objective of this research is to evaluate and rank the factors influencing omnichannel (OC) logistics, while also investigating the significant impact of big data analytics in improving these drivers of OC logistics.

Using exploratory sequential mixed method design, an in-person interview survey was conducted to identify and stratifies the enablers of OC retailing. These interviews were supplemented with a case study in an apparel firm to prioritise the enablers of OC logistics. Further, a survey was conducted to understand the role of big data analytics in improving drivers of OC logistics as well as the role of Individual capability and organisational capability in big data usage for omnichannel retailing.

Findings represent that information management is the most important driver followed by inventory management and network design for improving OC logistics. Further, significant relationship between big data analytics and drivers of omnichannel logistics has been reported.

This study identifies and classifies the drivers of OC retailing relating to their level of criticality in OC logistics which will assists practitioners to prioritise their tasks for the successful development of OC logistics. The study will also help practitioners to use BDA for developing the drivers of OC.

The study substantiates and adds to the BDA literature by emphasising the positive role of BDA in development of OC driver and highlighting the significant role of drivers of BDA in its usage.

The purpose of this paper is to study the underlying relationships among two distinct forms of consumer values, namely, instrumental and terminal values, fashion consciousness and behavioural intentions in the context of online fashion apparel retail sector.

A conceptual model and subsequent measurement scale were developed, grounded on in-depth review of the extensive literature and validated with customers engaged in online shopping of fashion apparels. The model was empirically examined, and a total of 395 responses were gathered from an online survey administered at a northeastern university in India. The model was validated using structural equation modelling, and a two-step approach suggested by Anderson and Gerbing (1988) was used to evaluate the measurement and structural models for the research.

The results of the study indicate that instrumental and terminal values significantly affect fashion consciousness, and fashion consciousness has a significant impact on behavioural intentions as well. The research brings out that fashion consciousness acts as a partial mediator between instrumental/terminal values and behavioural intentions. It is noteworthy that compared to terminal values instrumental values display a greater influence on both the variables fashion consciousness and behavioural intentions.

The conclusion of present research will notably assist the fashion retailers, online marketing researchers and experts understand the importance of terminal and instrumental values in increasing fashion consciousness, leading to strategically design campaigns for promoting and instigate consumers’ positive behavioural intentions in the best interest of the online fashion retail sector.

The study results provide suggestions for competitive marketing strategies for online fashion companies operating in the emerging markets like India.

The present study is first of its kind attempt to use Rokeach’s (1973) two-dimensional measure of human values, in order to discover the terminal and instrumental values relationship and their influence on fashion consciousness and behavioural intentions in the online fashion retail industry.