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The state of Maine was selected for study, since adequate sales tax records were available during the early 1990s, when Wal‐Mart entered the state. The sales tax reports were used to document the retail sales of Wal‐Mart towns, neighboring towns, and other towns in the state, in the years before and after a Wal‐Mart store’s arrival. The change in each community’s various categories of retail trade (building supply, food stores, general merchandise, other retail, auto and restaurants) was examined. The results indicate that the towns in each of the three categories were affected in the same manner: Wal‐Mart towns attract new shoppers and total retail sales increased at rates substantially higher than other towns in the state, while neighboring towns’ retail sales levels declined or increased at very low rates.

The changes in the Czech Republic brought by the transition process had a significant impact on all sectors of the economy and none more so than on retailing. Presents the initial findings of a long‐term longitudinal study of clothing retailing in the Czech Republic examining the retail format and merchandise assortment structure of clothing retailing in the period of 1994‐1999. The research focused on Czech towns and specifically excluded the capital city of Prague. From the analysis of the retail format development two broad conclusions emerge. First, the smaller towns appear to be more conservative in terms of structural change. Second, there appears to be more extensive changes in retail format patterns occurring in the larger towns. .

This aim of the research is to explore the link between offline and online retail sales through a comprehensive analysis of 15 years of retail sales data in Great Britain. By quantifying the impact of online sales on offline sales and vice versa on different retail categories, the study seeks to expand upon prior research that often focused on unidirectional relationships or specific retail segments. With channel- and sector-specific dynamics, the present study aspires to shed light on the dynamics shaping the retail industry and provide valuable insights for retailers.

The present study draws on 15 years of retail sales data in Great Britain to examine the interplay between offline and online sales across various retail categories. By grounding the analysis in the theoretical underpinning of cross-channel synergies and dis-synergies and applying principles of substitution and complementarity in online and offline retail sales, the research aims to quantify how shifts in online retail influence offline sales and vice versa. The study follows a systematic analysis approach that includes analysis of seasonality, autocorrelation, correlation, lagged cross-correlation and time series regression to provide a holistic understanding of the strength and direction of the relationship.

Among the myriads of findings, the most noteworthy ones are these. It was found that offline sales tend to increase significantly when online sales increase and online sales also increase significantly when offline sales increase. However, the extent of influence offline sales have on online sales is lower than the extent of influence online sales have on offline sales. For instance, it was found that for every one-unit increase in online sales, on average, the offline sales of retail stores increase by 5.82 units, but for every one-unit increase in offline sales, on average, the online sales of retail stores increase only by 0.07 units. This pattern was found true for all categories for retail stores, with predominantly non-food stores showing the lowest increase (0.02) and non-store retails exhibiting the highest increase (0.23). Additionally, evidence suggested that the retail stores can expect a sizable level of offline sales when there are no online sales (β₀ = 5155474.1); however, this was not true for online sales if they have no offline sales.

The study deepens our insight into the complex interplay between offline and online sales in the retail sector by providing empirical evidence on how online sales and offline sales interact with each other in a retail setting. It also adds nuances to existing knowledge on the relationship between online and offline sales based on channel and sector-specific dynamics. Such findings, coming from the analysis of a whole retail economy, strengthen the existing body of literature and provide a solid foundation for future research in this area. However, the study would have benefited from including qualitative interviews of different categories of retailers to provide more context and depth on interpreting quantitative patterns.

The study provides practical guidance for retailers on how they can optimize their omnichannel strategies for maximum impact. It also provides insights into the changes in relationship in terms of channel-specific and sector-specific differences. This is particularly important for retailers who operate in those categories of retail as it provides them with an insight into how they can allocate their resources for reaping substantial benefits.

Despite the wealth of research exploring the link between online and offline retail sales, there remains a gap in understanding the complex relationship between these two. This study is one of the first to fill this gap by exploring the link through a comprehensive analysis of 15 years of retail sales data in Great Britain. With these channel- and sector-specific findings, this study adds to the growing body of literature that provides an understanding of the bidirectional relationships between offline and online sales. These strengths strengthen the existing body of literature and provide a solid foundation for future research in this area.

As ecommerce becomes more prevalent, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers such as warehouse clubs (WCs) face the challenging task of maintaining and growing their customer base. This study aims to unravel the combined impact of retail agglomeration and ecommerce activities on consumer foot traffic (also referred to as “footprint”) at WC stores, placing an emphasis on the locational strategies adopted by WCs in this evolving retail landscape.

Mobile-based customer foot traffic data for Costco, a major U.S. WC chain, is sourced for our analysis. We use Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to identify dimensions of general merchandise (GM) and narrow-range merchandise (NM) retail agglomeration. Two-stage least squares (2SLS) regressions are used to explore how the intensity of ecommerce activities and WC locational choices within retail agglomerations impact WC foot traffic.

Our analysis highlights a notable decline in WC store visits attributable to both GM and NM ecommerce activities, with GM ecommerce presenting a more significant competitive challenge to WCs. Regarding retail agglomerations, proximity to GM clusters that include a diverse range of supercenters, department stores, and club stores, is associated with an increase in WC customer visits within their vicinity. In contrast, the influence of NM agglomerations is mixed; clusters adjacent to grocery stores lead to higher WC customer traffic compared to those focused on other specialized stores. These findings underscore the strategic importance of location in mitigating the adverse effects of ecommerce competition. Additionally, our study uncovers intricate dynamics between GM and NM retail clusters and ecommerce activities, demonstrating varied impacts on WC customer footprint.

Access to customer footprint data illustrates the potential of this data source for retail decision making and researchers. Our analysis is limited to one chain, notably Costco.

Our findings underscore the need for retailers to adeptly navigate the evolving retail landscape, including the confluence between physical and digital retail environments, to secure future success. In particular, our results emphasize the benefits of locating stores within mixed retail agglomerations and underline the need to consider the broader retail landscape in location decisions.

The rise of ecommerce in the U.S. has reshaped consumer behavior and altered local shopping districts’ communal dynamics. This change may spur policy interventions to help physical stores compete with online retailers, emphasizing the importance of retail diversity and community-centric environments to sustain communal retail interactions amidst digital advancements.

The paper makes use of a unique dataset to provide a first assessment of the combined effects of retail agglomeration and ecommerce activities on consumer foot traffic for WC retailers. Thus, this paper provides insights into the impacts on consumer shopping behavior from the dynamic interactions between physical retail clusters and online shopping behaviors.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of acquisition and organic growth on the operating efficiency and total factor productivity change of retailing networks.

The assessment uses low-frequency data of newly opened stores and acquired stores of a large supermarket (S/M) network in Athens, for a period (financial year 2014) where the network began to refocus on its organic growth after a two-year period of deep recession (financial years 2012–2013). To evaluate the performance effects of both strategies, the authors employ the innovative benchmarking tool of bootstrap data envelopment analysis (DEA) for measuring operational efficiency and the Malmquist productivity index DEA approach for measuring productivity change over time.

The short-run evidence indicates that compared to organic growth, acquisitions lead to lower operating efficiency. However, this difference gradually converges over time as acquired stores show a higher rate of productivity compared to newly opened stores. The authors interpret this as a result of the smooth integration of the acquired chain store into the organizational structure of the existing store network given their significant similarities in terms of products and customers.

The authors inform managers of store chains that during the process of organic growth, a general improvement in efficiency takes place while in the case of acquisitions, the required post-acquisition streamlining actions cause a short delay on the realization of efficiency gains. Therefore, managers should not take it for granted that acquisitions cause a long-term decrease in efficiency.

The study contributes to the literature on growth strategies and retailing performance in general, by offering new evidence regarding the comparative effect of the horizontal growth modes on the efficiency of store chains.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the linkages between the determinants of relationship marketing and the behavioural component of these determinants within a non-Western retail stores setting.

A quantitative approach was employed, using 19-item, seven-point Likert scaled questionnaire administered to 350 participants with 67 per cent usable response rate. Data was analysed using exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach’s α internal consistency; correlation analysis and One-Way Analysis of Variance test.

Trust-Quality services emerged as the most outstanding determinant of relationship marketing within the retail stores context followed by relational orientation, commitment and proximity. Quality services were found to have the most significant positive impact on trust whereas trust was found to have a strong positive impact on commitment. Relational orientation was found to have a strong positive impact on trust, commitment and quality services but proximity was found to be a docile factor determining commitment and relational orientation. Finally, consumers were identified as being more relationally oriented than retailers and all categories of consumers can be served with same blend of relationship marketing strategies.

Since findings could not be generalized across other sectors and regions, guides for testing the proposed research model are put forward.

Relationship marketing implementation within the context of retail stores will be more successful if based on delivery of quality services. Consumers are also more likely to patronize closer than distant retail stores. As such, even if retail firms build strong trust, commitment and relational orientation with customers through quality services, consumers will still patronize stores that are closer to them more than stores in distant locations. Siting retail stores in locations with the largest pool of customers’ is therefore central to enhancing retail stores performance. All categories of customers could be served with same stream of relationship marketing strategies because designing different schemes of relationship marketing programmes for different customer categories were found to be counter-productive.

This paper identified 16 attributes that are important to consumers under four dimensions: Trust-Quality services, relational orientation, commitment and proximity within the retail stores context. The findings are acknowledged to be unique because they emerged from a largely under-researched collectivistic emerging market where relationship marketing formation is key.

States that there is compelling evidence that the Japanese retail distribution system is changing. This study uses census data for ten years (1985 to 1994) to understand past changes in the structure of the retail distribution system. To understand the likely changes to the distribution system in the future, data were collected from 136 Japanese manufacturers and retailers. Results suggest significant future changes in the number of retailers, specialty stores, general merchandise stores, discount stores, and non‐store retailing.

This paper explores the antecedents and consequences of consumers’ need for self-image congruence on their retail patronage of department (high-end) and discount (low-end) stores to purchase name-brand products in two product categories, apparel and home décor. It also compared online to offline shopping and considered two mediator variables, frugality and materialism.

The paper analyzed the hypothesized relationships using structural equation modeling (SEM) and MANOVA. Study 1 suggested the model using secondary data, and Study 2 measured and confirmed the relationships using scenario-based online survey data. An MANOVA test was used to compare the shopping behavior of consumers with high and low need for self-image congruence.

A strong causal link was found between concern with appearance and need for self-image congruence, and a positive relationship between need for self-image congruence and high- and low-end retail store patronage offline and online. While the group with high (vs low) need for self-image congruence was more likely to patronize department stores, unexpectedly, both the high and low self-image congruence groups were equally likely to shop at discount stores.

The findings suggest that marketing messages focusing on concern for appearance may succeed by tapping into consumers’ need for self-image congruence with brand product/retail store images. Results also showed that consumers with high self-image congruence often patronize discount retail stores, suggesting marketing opportunities for low-end retailers.

Because consumers with high need for self-image congruence patronize both department and discount stores, it is suggested that self-image congruity may be multi-dimensional. The current study is also the first to examine structural relationships to test patronage behavior between department and discount stores offline and online.

The purpose of this study is to understand how narratives are generated in stores.

The study design is based on ethnographies documented in 10 sports stores in the Paris region. The ethnographic method enables a precise and in situ observation of how narratives are structured. Narrative structures develop from the accommodation of the narratives specific to retailers and narratives specific to the customer.

The findings of this study identified four main narratives in retail spaces (the serial, the tale, the epic, the legend), each of which is distinguished by the commercial/non-commercial orientation of the narratives and by a superficial/in-depth modification of the narratives produced outside the store. These four narratives are characterized by the vendors’ roles and by the distinct interactions between customers and retail stores.

The originality of this study is to propose a narrative framework for retail structures. It illustrates the fact that the narrative is not solely a product of experiential marketing, but that it may be found in any retail store. From a practical point of view, it highlights other less costly experiential narrative strategies.

From a practical point of view, it highlights other less costly experiential narrative strategies.

The original value of this study is to apply structural semiotics to analyse narratives in the store.

Sporting goods retailing is a significant sector within the sport industry with the total revenue of this sector reaching $52.2 billion in 2018. Beset with formidable competition, sporting goods stores are compelled to augment their merchandise with service and improve retail quality. The purpose of this study is to investigate retail quality of sporting goods stores (RQSGS).

Based on 27,793 online reviews of 1481 stores in the United States, this study used Leximancer 4.0, a text mining software, to identify critical retail quality dimensions associated with sporting goods stores, and further explored the most salient dimensions among different levels of ratings.

Customer service and store aspects are the two higher-order dimensions of RQSGS; holistic experience, manager and staff are three themes under customer service, and product, B&M store and online–offline integration are three themes under store aspects. Furthermore, extreme reviews focus more on customer service, whereas lukewarm reviews focus more on store aspects.

Knowledgeable staff, managers and online–offline integration are instrumental in creating superior retail quality. Sporting goods stores should enhance hedonic and social values for consumers in order to ward off online competitions.

This study explored retail quality dimensions that are pertinent to sporting goods retailing utilizing text mining methods. This study to certain extent cross-validated the existing retailing literature that is developed on alternative methods.