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The current work reviews all retailing articles published in four prominent retailing journals – Journal of Retailing, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, and International Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research – in the 2009-2015 period, picking up where Runyan and Hyun (2009) left off. The purpose of this paper is to identify leading authors and institutions in retailing research based on overall impact.

Content analysis/literature review/descriptive research.

In total, 1,392 articles were published during this time period, and through a procedure of weights and adjustments for author count, journal impact, journal quality, and journal publishing opportunity, the findings reveal that research collaboration is highly prevalent, as evidenced by the high number of multi-authored papers and cross-university/international partnerships. Additionally, some authors and institutions remain influential, while others have emerged as highly influential in the last seven years. This shows the dynamic nature of the field and the need to remain active in quality publishing.

Scholars must understand that several factors influence impact judgments, which cannot be assessed using raw counts alone. Journal quality, impact, and publishing opportunity as well as author counts are important elements to consider.

These reviews are vital to the field in that they provide status updates on scholarship, so these reviews should be done periodically. Additionally, the findings in this paper provide a more holistic understanding of research impact and permit better assessment for scholars and administrators.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a conceptualization of shopper as behaviourally distinct from consumer. The authors seek to identify elements foundational to shopper behaviour, using insights from the extant literature. A path-to-purchase framework is proposed, and tested. The framework is further explored as a method for improving shopper segmentation.

Over 308 articles associated with the shopper are examined using a bibliometric methodology. The literature review provides the foundation for a path-to-purchase (PtP) framework. An experimental design online study is undertaken to validate the framework. Structural equation modelling is used to analyse the data. Moderation testing of importance in the model is explored.

The findings reveal five stages through which shoppers’ progress in pursuit of purchase resolution. The exploratory study reveals the positive influence of each stage one on another. Additionally, shopper perception of the importance of the recipient and the occasion moderate relationships associated with purchase outcomes.

The research may be limited by the selection of literature assembled from over 60 years of research, and the online methodology.

The framework is suited for both industry and academia to better address shopper needs. The framework is specific to shopper behaviour relieving some of the conflicting messages which result from the overlay of consumer behaviour on a shopper. The framework describes the processes in purchase pursuit allowing brands and retailers to better support the shopper. Importance as a moderator is explored allowing for new and perhaps better ways to segment shoppers.

This theory building research provides a comprehensive exploration of the shopping literature to propose a PtP framework. The framework provides academicians and practitioners a more detailed method for examining and segmenting shoppers. Through the framework elements specific with each stage can be examined for their suitability as better segmentation tools for brands and retailers to deliver enhanced shopper satisfaction.

This study aims to examine the extent to which consumers' perceptions of their downtown's brand identity (composed of image and positioning), business mix, and sense‐of‐place predict consumers' intention to patronize downtown.

A survey of residents (n=836) from four communities in Michigan and four communities in Oklahoma was conducted. The survey included scales measuring brand identity, business mix, sense‐of‐place, and patronage intention.

Positioning, image, and business mix are significant, positive predictors of consumer patronage intentions downtown. Sense‐of‐place, however, has a significant, negative effect on patronage intention.

Though limited to eight communities in two states, this study does broaden the research in place branding by examining consumers' perceptions of location as a brand and the influence of those perceptions on patronage intentions. Validity for scales measuring brand identity, business mix, and sense‐of‐place is provided. The study provides a springboard for additional downtown branding research.

The negative effect of sense‐of‐place on patronage intention is troubling, indicating that a downtown which pays too much attention to preservation, walkability, etc. and not enough to brand image and business mix may suffer.

Despite renewed focus on retailing downtown, there exists a paucity of research examining how consumers perceive their downtown. Of the current literature, most is narrowly focused in examining consumers' perceptions in limited domains. This study seeks to broaden the research literature by ascertaining consumers' perceptions of downtown in three areas – brand identity, business mix, and sense‐of‐place.

The purpose of this paper is to extend previous research into sport celebrity endorsements by investigating such endorsements of products ultimately sold by retailers. This is done by updating previous research involving print media in sporting magazines.

A content analysis approach is used, examining advertisements in randomly selected issues of sports illustrated from the most recent full six years of publication.

Changes in the frequency of advertisements using sports celebrities were found compared to previous studies. Additionally, it appears that products which are ultimately sold by retailers are endorsed more frequently by celebrities in certain sports than others.

By including in the investigation the topics of sport played and consumer products, the paper extends the current literature to explore the advertisers' use of athlete endorsers with products directly and indirectly impacting retailers.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between young consumers' innovativeness and their hedonic/utilitarian attitudes toward cool clothing and to examine the moderating role of income on this relationship. This study uses five cool factors (singular cool, personal cool, aesthetic cool, functional cool and quality cool) under the hedonic and utilitarian cool dimensions to test the hypotheses.

Using a web-based survey, 265 responses were used for analysis. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the measurement scales. Single-group SEM and multiple-group SEM were performed to examine the hypothesized relationships.

Innovative young consumers tend to have stronger hedonic cool attitude toward clothing than non-innovative young consumers. In contrast, innovativeness and utilitarian values of cool products are not interrelated for young consumers. Innovative, high-income young consumes have a tendency to purchase cool products to reflect their personality, individuality, and self-identity.

This study has limitations for future research with regard to the generalization of the findings because this study focused on a sample of college students.

This study will provide some valuable information about young consumers' purchasing behaviours toward cool products for commercial marketers.

This study provides an initial contribution to the literature on the relationships between young consumers' hedonic/utilitarian attitudes and their innovativeness and income levels.

The purpose of this paper is to describe a qualitative study of small retailers, designed to uncover perceptions of resources which may be utilized to create competitive advantages and improve performance. The resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm has focused on large firms, and this study extends RBV to the small firm.

Using focus groups of small retailers within four communities in the USA, open‐ended questioning and discussions were utilized to help elicit responses about owner's resources.

The concepts of community brand identity, local social capital and environmental hostility (though not part of the original discussion guide), emerged as important constructs. Both community brand identity and social capital were articulated by focus group participants as resources which helped them to be successful. Brand identity was seen as important regardless of environment, while social capital emerged as a resource used more in hostile environments.

Brand identity and social capital are non‐economic resources which may help small retailers to compete in increasingly competitive environments. The RBV holds that to provide a competitive advantage, a firm's resources must be valuable, rare, imperfectly mobile and non‐substitutable. This qualitative study supports the conceptualization of brand identity and social capital as such resources.

Small business owners need to recognize the value of non‐monetary resources. Once these are recognized they can then be leveraged by the business owner to improve performance.

Few studies exist which apply the RBV to small firms. Only recently have scholars begun to operationalize constructs of the RBV. Researchers have not investigated social capital or brand identity as mitigators of environmental hostility. This study addresses each of these issues.

To extend the research focuses of downtown business districts beyond the urban planning literature through application of the resource‐based theory of the firm. Downtowns may act like firms (with a collection of SBUs), and therefore should possess resources that provide competitive advantages.

A multi‐method approach (focus groups; survey) is used to examine, a priori, the resources that provide competitive advantage for downtowns, including brand identity, business mix and community characteristics. Structural equation modeling is used to test the measurement of the constructs as well as estimate the effects of those constructs on downtown success. The data were collected from business owners within 11 downtown business districts in the US Midwest.

Confirmatory factor analyses reveal that brand identity, business mix and community characteristics are three distinct measures of downtown resources. Brand identity was found to have a significant and positive effect on downtown success. Though the literature points to the importance of both business mix and community characteristics, these did not have a significant effect on downtown success.

Brands in general are posited to be less mobile than other firm resources, and thus may provide a more sustainable competitive advantage. By combining diverse areas of study, operationalizing new constructs, and testing measures, both the resource‐based view (RBV) and brand research are extended.

Since most downtown business districts (and the small businesses therein) have finite resources, to identify those which provide the most sustainable competitive advantage is critical to success. In this study, brand identity is the most important resource a downtown can possess.

This research moves the study of brands beyond “product” towards the concept of place branding. It extends the RBV framework to conceptualize downtown business districts as “firms,” thus allowing the identification of resources that lead to successful downtowns.

This study aims to identify consumer segments among luxe-bargain shoppers using a fuzzy clustering method based on psychographic variables related to both luxury consumption and bargain processes and profiles the identified segments in behavioral tendencies.

The sample consists of 500 consumers who purchased a luxury brand at a bargain. The analyses involve running a confirmatory factor analysis, a fuzzy clustering analysis based on psychographic variables, and ANOVA for profiling the segments.

A fuzzy clustering analysis identifies four distinct segments: deal hunters, sale-prone shoppers, active luxe-bargain shoppers, and royal shoppers. Each consumer segment exhibits differences in consumer characteristics, demographics, and behavioral tendencies. The study provides insight into varied luxury consumers.

In an effort to fill the gap between traditional framework in luxury research and today ' s luxury market that provides accessibility of luxury items at lower price points to mass consumers, this study introduces a new concept of “luxe-bargain shopper” and examines varied luxury good consumers in the bargain shopping context. However, the findings of the current study should be interpreted with caution due to sampling method, product category of luxury brands, the limited number of luxury brands used in the study.

The results provide marketing suggestions for each segment of luxe-bargain shoppers.

There is virtually no luxury study conducted in the context of bargain shopping. By examining luxe-bargain shoppers using a robust fuzzy clustering method, this study extends our knowledge of luxury consumption as well as provides a new perspective to segmentation research.